The fox, once the terror of the hen-houses can't be that any more, because all the hens are now incarcerated in strong cages within formidable buildings. That's by the way. The fox is big news in England still since that threat by Tony Blair that hunting it was to be banned. Maybe he was a bit hasty. There isn't the same fire in the argument at present, anyway. The wily animal is, of course, well ensconced in suburbs and is occasionally seen in the heart of the city. An article was published in The Field recently pointing out, to the non-hunter in particular, may be, what the odds are against the fox in this organised chase with horsemen and women and hounds. The fox's vision is about fifteen inches from the ground. The hunters sit high above him on their horses, seeing over ditches, hedges and high growth in general. It is said here that of a litter of young maybe 70 or 80 per cent die before reaching adulthood, whether from disease or killed in action, so to speak. And foxes often live in a very small world, bounded by the territory of other foxes around them and dependent on the amount of food available to them. Their domain may be small which, the writer, Barney White-Spunner, remarks, means that if driven out of it by hounds, they will so often double back to regain the known paths and ways. "This would explain why many good hunts tend to be circular, ending up much where they started." (He is writing about England. This may not apply here.) If you think foxes all breed underground, note this addendum from a letter written about half a century ago. It told that in his part of the country, they frequently saw, as did hounds, foxes in one of the big lime trees. As you know, very old limes are frequently covered to a good height with their own thick brishwood. In this case, the "second whip" climbed up and dislodged the fox (Jolly unsporting, you might think.) On two occasions vixens raised their litter 30 or 40 feet above ground.
To the many whose only view of the fox is his or her stately trot across the lawn or field, this action reminds of those dignified white Lippizaner horses of Vienna. The fox's braininess and resourcefulness had been known for centuries. Remember La Fontaine's fable where the fox, seeing a crow on a tree above him with something delicious in his beak, remarks how distinguished is the crow and how he would love to hear the bird sing. In the end, the crow is flattered, opens his beak and the cheese or whatever it was is snapped up by the fox.