Ways of Wood Folk | Page 9

an empty box against
the opening, at the same time pounding lustily to frighten the thief from
killing more chickens. Reynard was trapped sure enough. The
fox-hunter listened at the door, but save for an occasional surprised
cut-aa-cut, not a sound was heard within.
Very cautiously he opened the door and squeezed through. There lay a
fine pullet stone dead; just beyond lay the fox, dead too.
"Well, of all things," said the fox-hunter, open-mouthed, "if he hasn't
gone and climbed the roost after that pullet, and then tumbled down
and broken his own neck!"
Highly elated with this unusual beginning of his hunt, he picked up the
fox and the pullet and laid them down together on the box outside,
while he fed his chickens.
When he came out, a minute later, there was the box and a feather or
two, but no fox and no pullet. Deep tracks led out of the yard and up
over the hill in flying jumps. Then it dawned upon our hunter that
Reynard had played the possum-game on him, getting away with a
whole skin and a good dinner.
There was no need to look farther for a good fox track. Soon the music
of the hounds went ringing over the hill and down the hollow; but
though the dogs ran true, and the hunter watched the runways all day
with something more than his usual interest, he got no glimpse of the
wily old fox. Late at night the dogs came limping home, weary and
footsore, but with never a long yellow hair clinging to their chops to

tell a story.
The fox saved his pullet, of course. Finding himself pursued, he buried
it hastily, and came back the next night undoubtedly to get it.
Several times since then I have known of his playing possum in the
same way. The little fellow whom I mentioned as living near the
wilderness, and snaring foxes, once caught a black fox--a rare, beautiful
animal with a very valuable skin--in a trap which he had baited for
weeks in a wild pasture. It was the first black fox he had ever seen, and,
boylike, he took it only as a matter of mild wonder to find the beautiful
creature frozen stiff, apparently, on his pile of chaff with one hind leg
fast in the trap.
He carried the prize home, trap and all, over his shoulder. At his whoop
of exultation the whole family came out to admire and congratulate. At
last he took the trap from the fox's leg, and stretched him out on the
doorstep to gloat over the treasure and stroke the glossy fur to his
heart's content. His attention was taken away for a moment; then he had
a dazed vision of a flying black animal that seemed to perch an instant
on the log fence and vanish among the spruces.
Poor Johnnie! There were tears in his eyes when he told me about it,
three years afterwards.
* * * * *
These are but the beginning of fox-ways. I have not spoken of his
occasional tree climbing; nor of his grasshopper hunting; nor of his
planning to catch three quails at once when he finds a whole covey
gathered into a dinner-plate circle, tails in, heads out, asleep on the
ground; nor of some perfectly astonishing things he does when hard
pressed by dogs. But these are enough to begin the study and still leave
plenty of things to find out for one's self. Reynard is rarely seen, even
in places where he abounds; we know almost nothing of his private life;
and there are undoubtedly many of his most interesting ways yet to be
discovered. He has somehow acquired a bad name, especially among
farmers; but, on the whole, there is scarcely a wild thing in the woods

that better repays one for the long hours spent in catching a glimpse of
him.

II. MERGANSER.
[Illustration]
Shelldrake, or shellbird, is the name by which this duck is generally
known, though how he came to be called so would be hard to tell.
Probably the name was given by gunners, who see him only in winter
when hunger drives him to eat mussels--but even then he likes
mud-snails much better.
The name fish-duck, which one hears occasionally, is much more
appropriate. The long slender bill, with its serrated edges fitting into
each other like the teeth of a bear trap, just calculated to seize and hold
a slimy wriggling fish, is quite enough evidence as to the nature of the
bird's food, even if one had not seen him fishing on the lakes and rivers
which are his summer home.
That same bill, by the way, is sometimes a source of danger. Once, on
the coast, I saw a