like a mouse as possible. Reynard will hear the sound at an incredible
distance. Pricking up his ears, he gets the direction, and comes
trotting along as unsuspiciously as can be. I have never had an
opportunity to try the experiment, but I know perfectly reliable
persons who have. One man, in the pasture getting his cows, called a
fox which was too busy mousing to get the first sight, till it jumped
upon the wall just over where he sat secreted. Giving a loud whoop and
jumping up at the same time, the fox came as near being frightened out
of his skin as I suspect a fox ever was.

In trapping for a fox, you get perhaps about as much "fun" and as
little fur as in any trapping amusement you can engage in. The one
feeling that ever seems present to the mind of Reynard is suspicion. He
does not need experience to teach him, but seems to know from the jump
that there is such a thing as a trap, and that a trap has a way of
grasping a fox's paw that is more frank than friendly. Cornered in a
hole or a den, a trap can be set so that the poor creature has the
desperate alternative of being caught or starving. He is generally
caught, though not till he has braved hunger for a good many days.

But to know all his cunning and shrewdness, bait him in the field, or
set your trap by some carcass where he is wont to come. In some cases
he will uncover the trap, and leave the marks of his contempt for it in
a way you cannot mistake, or else he will not approach within a rod of
it. Occasionally, however, he finds in a trapper more than his match,
and is fairly caught. When this happens, the trap, which must be of the
finest make, is never touched with the bare hand, but, after being
thoroughly smoked and greased, is set in a bed of dry ashes or chaff in
a remote field, where the fox has been emboldened to dig for several
successive nights for morsels of toasted cheese.