Rensselaer Republican, Volume 22, Number 46, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 17 July 1890 — Foxes In England. [ARTICLE]

Foxes In England.

London Spectator." _ i EarlV in the spring the dog-foxes travel great distances to find their mates, und on still evenings their cry may be heard plainly, three short, husky barks, like the cough of a dog with a bone in his throat. The vixen occasionally utters a plaintive howl, a weird uncomfortuble noise. The first cubs are dropped early in the middle of March, sometimes in some large earth that has been used for yours, but frequently in a hole which the vixen has made for herself. Unlike the otters, foxes do not resent the presence of others of their species in their hunting grounds. A pair of otters will thOßopolize miles of river, but if there is plenty of game and the covers are quiet half a dozen vixens may take up their quarters in one square mile. The quantity of food' which the cubs require is extraordinary, and if the fox were not the most cunning as well as one of the most active and enduring cf animals, the old ones would; find it hard to satisfy them. Fortunately for the mothers of Marge families—for they sometimes have as many as seven itt a litter—the cubs are omnivorous feeders, and, except snakes or storts, will eat almost anything. Fish, frogs, rats, small birds, field mice, rabbits and nil kinds of game are their usual fare. The vixens prowl round every fowl-house in the parish at least once a week. They will climb an ivy-cov-ered tree and catch a wood-pigeon on her'nest, or hide in a patch of rushes and catoh the moor-hen as she swims from her island home to the bank Meantime the father of (he famil

leads a comfortable bachelor life, spending the warm days curled up in a snug nest in the long dry grass, with a good thick tuft between Rim and the wind, or if the day be very calm, he slips into the crown of a pollard and sleeps there.