Stupid chickens are not the only birds
captured. Once I read in the snow the story of his hunt after a
crow--wary game to be caught napping! The tracks showed that quite a
flock of crows had been walking about an old field, bordered by pine
and birch thickets. From the rock where he was sleeping away the
afternoon the fox saw or heard them, and crept down. How cautious he
was about it! Following the tracks, one could almost see him stealing
along from stone to bush, from bush to grass clump, so low that his
body pushed a deep trail in the snow, till he reached the cover of a
low pine on the very edge of the field. There he crouched with all
four feet close together under him. Then a crow came by within ten
feet of the ambush. The tracks showed that the bird was a bit
suspicious; he stopped often to look and listen. When his head was
turned aside for an instant the fox launched himself; just two jumps,
and he had him. Quick as he was, the wing marks showed that the crow
had started, and was pulled down out of the air. Reynard carried him
into the densest thicket of scrub pines he could find, and ate him
there, doubtless to avoid the attacks of the rest of the flock, which
followed him screaming vengeance.
A strong enmity exists between crows and foxes. Wherever a crow finds
a fox, he sets up a clatter that draws a flock about him in no time,
in great excitement.
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