A light fall of snow aids the trapper's art and conspires to Reynard's
ruin. But how lightly he is caught, when caught at all! barely the end
of his toes, or at most a spike through the middle of his foot. I once
saw a large painting of a fox struggling with a trap which held him by
the hind leg, above the gambrel-joint! A painting alongside of it
represented a peasant driving an ox-team from the offside! A fox would
be as likely to be caught above the gambrel-joint as a farmer would to
drive his team from the off-side. I knew one that was caught by the tip
of the lower jaw. He came nightly, and took the morsel of cheese from
the pan of the trap without springing it. A piece was then secured to
the pan by a thread, with the result as above stated.

I have never been able to see clearly why the mother fox generally
selects a burrow or hole in the open field in which to have her young,
except it be, as some hunters maintain, for better security. The young
foxes are wont to come out on a warm day, and play like puppies in
front of the den. The view being unobstructed on all sides by trees or
bushes, in the cover of which danger might approach, they are less
liable to surprise and capture. On the slightest sound they disappear
in the hole. Those who have watched the gambols of young foxes speak of
them as very amusing, even more arch and playful than those of kittens,
while a spirit profoundly wise and cunning seems to look out of their
young eyes. The parent fox can never be caught in the den with them,
but is hovering near the woods, which are always at hand, and by her
warning cry or bark tells them when to be on their guard. She usually
has at least three, dens, at no great distance apart, and moves
stealthily in the night with her charge from one to the other, so as to
mislead her enemies. Many a party of boys, and of men, too, discovering
the whereabouts of a litter, have gone with shovels and picks, and,