Pelts and Foxes
The fox, that once sacred animal, is being hunted not with-hounds but guns in several districts of England owing to the increasing loss of lambs. Incidentally, a Welsh shepherd of sorts tells me that the cunning " varmint " always selects a twin as an easier prey. In the North-West it is abused for its attacks on the sheep ; in the South for its attacks on poultry ; and perhaps in both regions its reputation suffers from losses for which other creatures, especially stray dogs, are responsible. Similar drives against the fox are raking place in the United States, where it is generally credited with all the sins of raccoons, opossums, dogs, cats, skunks and even hawks and great horned owls. However this may be, the scale of destruction is immense. It is estimated that in the latest season 36,000 were killed largely by trappers ; but, as with the tree-bear in Australia, the number of victims rises with the price of the pelt, just as the destruction of grey squirrels in America and rabbits in England varies with the price of the meat. Does anyone here who destroys a fox think of the value of its skin or a grey squirrel of the price in the butcher's shop? A statement that astonished me is that the State of New York (while neither large nor wild) produces more trapped furs than the whole of Alaska.
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