The Jersey City news. (Jersey City [N.J.]) 1889-1906, 1894-01-06
K IN NEW JERSEY.
The Species Most Prevalent rs tn
Red Fox.

SRCNhCB HxO8S A1 IL
Red Fox.
Thee fox has not entirely deserted New
Jersey. He occasionally makes his appear
ance in different parts of the State, particu-
larly in some parts of the Blue Ridge range,
in Sussex county, among the mountains OF
Warren and the northern part of Hunter
don, and in the Sauerland mountain ridge
that divides Hunterdon, Mercer and Somer
set counties
The species most prevalent is the red fox,
with some rare specimens of the silver gray.
Gravel Hill and the Mu5conetcong Mountain
/ are ~favorite grounds for fox hunting among
the Nimrods of Hunterdon.
Along about this time in the year and
later, when a snow comes to the depth of six
or eight inches, so as to impede Reynards
progress somewhat, for he is a noted runner.
the fox hunters, who usually hunt in pairs,
will start at a very early hour for the haunts
of the sly chicken thief, with their dogs, and
they usually succeed in starting one in a short
time and then the sport begins. The feet
| animal is easily tracked in the snow, and its
| yielding nature usually SO binders hin that
he will not run great distances in a straight
line, but turns and doubles in the cndeavor
to throw his pursuers off his rack. But the
true fox hunter never lets up once ne strikes
the trail, and on he goes, mile after mile,
until the fox Is HhOled."
The sport for the hunter lies in therdiffi-
| Guilty experienced in getting at him after you
! AVE run him to his hole. He burrows UNI
der the ground long distances. Smoke
fetches him about as quick as anything, but
the smoke doesn't always blow down the
hole. Shots fired into the burrow do not
seem to hit the sly quadruped. He must
have side apartments ia his home.
When the smoke finally gets in and Rey-
M. nd ic <ot11nal1od 70 con,o fn the 'FRONT.' ofe0rfo
are sometimes made to catch him alive. 1t
is a mighty hard job however. You can't
lasso him. He slides back into his den even
if he is half st1ffocated. When he comes
pack to the surface he gets a little of his nose
out into the air, but keeps his nose ont of
| reach of the rope. Once in a while the
tricky animal will be caught mapping and
dragged out. Then be runs around wildly
and tries in every way to slip out of the
moose.
When he is finally captured the pelt is
taken and sold. or kept as a relic of the hum
ter's prowess.
The story is told Of a hunter who went out
alone after a fox that had been committing
~depredations on his hen roost. The locality
| where Mr.. Fox had taken up his quarters
was a conical shaped hill, and while the
hunter soon unearthed the marauder, he was
| unable to come within shooting distance of
! the fox, which ran round and round the hill.
What to do he did not know, until q happy
| thought struck him, when he seized his gun
by the muzzle, and with a swinging stroke
he bent the barrel around a tree and
then fired in the opposite direction to that in
which the fox was running, and, having for
| tunately given the gun barrel the proper
curvature, the bullet followed the same
course and hit the fox plump in the head,
when the hunter picked up his game and
| carried it home in triumph. There are no
photographs extant of this affair.
1t rarely pays to keep a live fox. 1t is al
most impossible to tame him. Most OF the
hunters, therefore, kill him and either have
| him stuffed or simply preserve the skin. IT
he is shot in the right place it is easy to stuff
him without showing any marks of the bull
let. If the fox is caught alive, it costs a
small fortune to supply his voracious appe-
tite with chickens and other more or less
expensive articles of food.