“Who—whoop! they have him, they’re round him;
They worry and tear when he’s down;
’Twas a stout hill fox when they found him,
Now ’tis a hundred tatters of brown.”
In John Peel’s time the fell country fox was a distinct variety. Long in the leg, with a grizzle-grey jacket covering a wiry frame, the appellation “greyhound” fitted him exactly. As such he was then known, and the extraordinary long runs which he often provided fully upheld his reputation as a traveller. In habits, too, he was different from the present-day representatives of the vulpine race. Wild and shy, he avoided the haunts of men, and was seldom found lying up anywhere near human habitations. He and his kind were few in number, compared with the ample stock to-day, and in consequence each individual fox travelled a wider beat, and knew more country. It, therefore, naturally followed that hounds often ran fast and far when piloted by one of these old-fashioned “greyhound” customers.
By degrees, owing to the importation of foxes for restocking certain districts adjoining the fells, the true hill fox became infused with this new blood. The new-comers were a smaller and redder variety, and although to-day hounds often account for foxes with greyish jackets, the supply as a whole differs little in appearance from the foxes which are brought to hand in the shires. It may be safely said that the real old “greyhound” variety is a thing of the past, only to be seen to-day staring woodenly from a glass case in the fell-side farmhouses.
Long and lean, the fell fox proper was a much heavier animal than his relations who have usurped his place. Eighteen pounds was a common weight, and instances of twenty and twenty-three pounds have been recorded, but to-day there are more foxes under than over sixteen pounds. Now and then the fell packs kill an extra heavy fox, and I can vouch for the weights of at least three foxes which pulled down the scales to the eighteen-pound mark.
Curiously enough two of these foxes were killed by the Coniston Hounds on the same day. The date was March 16th, 1913, and the first fox was killed at High Dale Park, near Coniston, after a good hunt of two and a half hours. Fox number two was run into on the shore of Coniston Lake, after a fast hunt, by way of High Bethicar,[25] Brockbarrow, and the Nibthwaite and Park-a-Moor coverts.
This season, 1919, the same pack killed a big, lean dog fox on November 25th, at Birk Brow in the Winster valley. This fox weighed exactly eighteen pounds, and was in hard condition. In November, 1912, the Mellbrake Hounds accounted for a fox of nineteen pounds. They found him on Low Fell, and ran him, by way of Whinfell, to the river Cocker. The stream being in flood, the fox retraced his track to Low Fell, where he went to ground. The terriers bolted him, and he gave a further five-mile spin before he was run into at Buttermere. On Thursday, January 15th, 1920, the Coniston Foxhounds killed a nineteen-pound dog-fox in the open, near Blea Tarn, Langdale. This is an exceptionally heavy fox, even for the fell country.
In his habits, the fell fox differs little from his relations in the low countries. In the daytime he makes his couch at a high elevation, often on one of the many heather or bleaberry covered ledges which seam the face of the crags on the mountain top. Occasionally he may lie at a lower elevation, amongst the ling on the grouse ground, or in some straggling covert of larch or oak; but his kind generally prefer to make their kennel well up the fell-side, where, except for the visit of an occasional shepherd, they are free from disturbance. When[26] the sun begins to sink, Reynard leaves his bed, stretches himself, and turns his mask in the direction of the dales. On the fell proper, there is little for him to feed on, with the exception of beetles and frogs, and an occasional carcass in the shape of a defunct sheep. Lower down he can find rabbits, grouse, and perhaps a pheasant, or, if he be impudent enough, can make a raid on the farmers’ poultry. Young lamb, too, is an item added to his, or, perhaps, I should say, her menu in spring, for it is then when the vixen has cubs, and the latter require constant feeding. In summer the fells swarm with beetles, and if the excrement of a fox be examined it will often be found to consist almost entirely of the wing cases and other hard portions of these insects. Frogs, too, are a favourite food. I have often found lumps of frog spawn lying on the narrow footpaths leading to the fell tops, and for a long time I used to wonder how these lumps got there. I finally arrived at the conclusion that foxes are responsible for the presence of the spawn. Reynard catches his frog in some pool or marshy spot, and carries his prey with him as he wends his way up one of the well-defined “trods.” There he makes a meal of the frog, but the spawn squeezed out of the creature he dislikes, so leaves it untouched.
Where he can get rabbits he will seldom go short of food, though little comes amiss to him if[27] he thinks he can use it for a meal. Like a dog, he often buries food for future consumption. I was recently talking to a keeper who found three rabbits buried in the snow. The tale of Reynard’s doings was plainly told on the white surface. The rabbits had been feeding in rank grass and rushes, and the fox had easily stalked and captured them. I have found the following list of furred and feathered creatures scattered about in and around a fell fox’s earth: Portions of two leverets, remains of several rabbits, feathers and bones of grouse, a very young lamb, and the untouched body of a short-eared owl. The only mark on the owl was a bite in the neck, probably done by the vixen when she killed the bird. Owl had not apparently suited the cubs’ taste, otherwise they would soon have pulled it to pieces.
At other earths I have found remains of pheasants and woodcock, with occasionally bones and feathers of blackgame. Both the dog-fox and the vixen carry food to the cubs, but the vixen does most of this work.
If an earth is disturbed when the cubs are quite young, the vixen carries them off one by one to some safer retreat. A breeding earth often becomes very foul, what with the excrement of the cubs and the rotting portions of food left lying about. Unless the vixen occasionally shifted her offspring disease would be liable to attack them.[28] As a rule the vixen lays down her cubs in some small and comparatively simple earth, often within reach of other and more extensive rocky retreats. The latter are used when the cubs are nearly full-grown. On the fells, a fox can get to ground almost anywhere amongst the rocks, but there are in every district well-known earths or, in local parlance, “Borrans,” which have been regularly used by generations of foxes. Some of these earths go a long way underground, and are composed of masses of rock and huge boulders, amongst which it is always difficult, and often dangerous, to work, in an attempt to unearth a fox which has gone to ground. Where a fox can go a small terrier can generally follow, but at times the dog is unable to return, and many a good terrier has lost his life in some underground retreat from which it was impossible to extricate him.
The fell fox loves rough ground, and uphill amongst the rocks he is a match for the swiftest hound. He can climb like a cat, and can squeeze his lean body through a very small opening. When hard pressed by hounds, instead of going to ground, he will sometimes attempt to evade them by taking refuge on some narrow ledge or “benk” on the crags. When this happens there is always the danger that hounds in the excitement of fresh-finding their fox may fall from the ledges on to the jagged rocks far below. Although Reynard is[29] quite at home in such places, even he sometimes goes too far, and finds his retreat cut off, and an impassable route ahead of him. There he crouches until some too venturesome hound finds a way to him, and unless the hound catches and holds him on the ledge, one or other of them, if not both, will be lucky if they escape death by a fall.
I have seen a young hound fall with his fox from a height of two hundred feet, and I can assure you it is far from being a pleasant sight. This season, 1919, I watched a fox run by the Blencathra Hounds, take refuge on a blaeberry-covered ledge on a small crag. Hounds could wind him from the top, and at last one of them scrambled up from below and walked right on top of the fox. Reynard sprang up, the hound seized, but could not hold him, and I saw the fox fall backwards off the ledge as he wrenched himself free. Luckily the hound had sense not to follow. Reynard fell a matter of fifty feet, scrambled on to his legs again, and went off, though it was easy to see he was badly shaken by his fall. Not long after he went to ground, was ejected, and finally killed.
Hunting with the same pack on another occasion, I saw a fox climb the face of a steep crag overlooking Thirlmere Lake. Only one hound out of the four couples which were running him managed to make the ascent, the remainder going round and out to the top by a different route.
The fences on the fells consist of loose stone walls, and foxes often run the wall tops for long distances, both when hunted and when out on the prowl.
On bad ground the fox uses his brush to aid him when making a quick turn at speed, and also to correct his balance in descending a declivity. I once watched a big dog-fox descend a steep, frozen snow drift. He carried his brush straight up in the air, whilst he took short mincing steps on the slippery surface. At ordinary times he carries his caudal appendage straight out behind him, the tip inclined slightly towards the ground.
Both dog-fox and vixen may have a white tag to the brush, though I think there are more of the former than the latter with such white tips. A white-tagged brush is not at any rate, as I have heard it said, the invariable mark of a dog-fox.
Hill foxes vary a good deal in colour, from a light yellowish-red to dark red, with sometimes a good many grey hairs mixed with the rest. The “greyhound” fox often showed a lot of white about the fore legs, but modern foxes shade off from red to black. During the 1918 season the Coniston Hounds killed a fox with an abnormal amount of white about the front of its mask.
When driven off the fell, and hard pressed by hounds in the low ground, I have seen foxes take refuge in all sorts of places. Once on a roof, again[31] on the window-ledge of a cottage, in a coal-house, and one desperately hunted fox sprang into a stream in roaring flood, to be carried under a bridge. Dry drains are often used as lying-up places, and they also afford refuge for hunted foxes, as do rabbit holes.
Reynard has no hesitation in taking to the water when need be, and I once saw a fox twice swim across the high end of a small lake, when it might just as easily have skirted the water, though doubtless the close proximity of hounds had something to do with the animal’s decision. A fox can climb like a cat, and when jumping an obstruction he hardly ever does so straight. A tame fox, kept in a roomy stable, invariably sprang up the side of the wall and threw himself into the manger, rather than jump straight into the latter, which he could easily do. A fox is also like a cat in the matter of the proverbial “nine lives.” I have often seen one after a terrific underground battle with the terriers, finally drawn out to all appearances dead, or practically so. Thrown on the ground the carcass has suddenly come to life, and made a bold bid for liberty.
If forced to go to ground in a spot not of his own choosing, a hill fox will sometimes squeeze himself tight into a narrow crevice of the rock where he is unable to distribute punishment to the terriers, but is forced to take and endure it from[32] them. As a rule, however, Reynard takes good care to make his stand where he commands the upper position, the terriers having to go up to him face to face. When this happens, the dog often gets badly marked, until another terrier can get behind the fox and force him to change his ground. When run to ground even in a big earth, a hunted fox sometimes elects to bolt very quickly. I remember on one occasion watching a fox enter a very strong earth, and before hounds could get to the spot, it bolted, went to ground again a few yards further on, and finally bolted and made straight away, to afford a good hunt.
A sure sign that a fox in a rocky earth is shifting his position underground, and may show himself, is when the terriers cease barking, and hounds begin to rush about the “Borran.” A fox has an uncanny knack of escaping from hounds, even if they are practically all round him. In rough ground, particularly, he is an adept at making his getaway.
In long heather a fox will often lie very close indeed, until hounds hunt right up to him. Then when you see the members of the pack jumping above the heather, as if expecting to view their quarry, you can look out, for he is sure to be lying hidden somewhere close to you. He will do the same on the ledge of a crag if he thinks he can escape notice, but, as a rule, he is not long in[33] leaving his retreat. I remember on one occasion seeing a fox curled up on a ledge quite bare of cover, in a crag overlooking the Deepdale valley. Hounds were questing for a drag far below. I was talking to another man at the time, yet that fox lay there and never stirred even an ear. Finally, I threw a stone at it, which bounced off the rock above it, making considerable noise. Still that fox lay on, as if deaf and blind. The next stone, however, was better aimed, and it rolled a few feet right on top of the fox. That woke him up, and he tarried not on his going. He must either have been asleep, or could not have heard or winded us. There was a stiffish breeze at the time, which may have had something to do with it.
I have only once seen a breeding earth actually in a crag. The vixen had chosen for her retreat a crevice in the face of the rock; the ascent to which was by no means easy. That the cubs had been well fed there was abundant evidence in the shape of pheasants’ tail feathers, bones, etc. These birds had been caught and killed in the dale below, and had been carried by the vixen for a considerable distance. Dog-foxes fight amongst themselves; these battles no doubt taking place in spring, when they travel long distances to visit the vixen of their choice. I have in my possession the mask of a big dog-fox—he weighed over seventeen[34] pounds—with half the left ear gone, doubtless the result of a fight.
At his own pace a hill fox can go for ever, and it is when scent is rather permanent than strong that extra long runs take place. Even on the roughest fells there is always some ground where hounds can press their fox, and so by degrees get on good terms with him. It is the pace which kills, in addition to the superior condition of the hounds. If a fox has gorged himself overnight, and hounds find him early in the morning, he is not in condition to show them a clean pair of heels, for he cannot, like a heron, lighten himself by throwing up his food. The consequence is, if hounds get away on anything like good terms, they burst him in a very short time. On the other hand, if he has come from a long distance in search of a vixen, he is not likely to have let hunger draw him away from love-making, so should he be forced to run for his life he can do it on an empty stomach, and his course is likely to be in a bee-line back to his own country. Then, if scent is good, the pace will be a cracker, and many miles will be covered, ere he is rolled over or run to ground. It is in spring that most of the longest runs take place, when the dog-foxes are on love-making bent.
The pace of a fox is very deceptive. He moves with a gliding actio............