The Birmingham age-herald., 1907-04-14
SIR REWARD Is 4
 CUNNING ANIMAL Stories of His Escape from Hunters and Hounds A SPORTMAN'S EXPERIENCE Tame Fox That Answered the Gall of the WiId-one, With Secure
 Hiding Place, That Was
 Never Hunted.
 
From the New York Sun.

Ine FOX mas, Tn common Wltn Oliltr Wiu animals, a single aim-to live a happy life. This necessarily includes self-preserva- ton. Only for a short time in the year is a fox's attention turned from himself and his own wants. In the early spring the paternal instinct causes him to feed the vixen before and after the birth of the cubs, and in some measure to provide for the welfare of the litter. Then only any thing like the shadow of conscience or sense of duty affects his life. The vixen has not even so much as this for she finds unquestionably her great happiness in the care and training of her cubs for life. It is a mater of common knowledge to all hunting men that the vixen $ train ing is necessary to the well being of her cubs, and incidentally to the success of fox hunting. If the vixens are killed of as soon as the cubs can feed it is well known that the foxes of that covert will show no knowledge of country when they come to be hunted.
 The aim, then, of fox actions IS to obtain the things which make his life pleasurable. Some are far more success ful than others by reason of the strength and intelligence brought to bear on the pursuit of happiness.
 The foxes one knows are as rule of two classes--those that are strong and intelligent and thus survive, or here and there an individual which has been partly domesticated and perhaps sophisticated by captivity. l am bound to say, writes T. F. Dale in Bailys Magazine, that my acquaintance with tame foxes is limited. 1 have always felt that 1t was cruel to confine an animal so fond of the life of the woods and fields SIS the foX. The reader will doubtless smile If l say that 1 sympathize with his loss of the hunting which he, no doubt, as we'll as we, enjoys when he is, as he generally is, pursuer and not pursued-when, for example, he Is digging out field mice, hunting the hedgerow rats, stalking rabbits or de- eeiving a hare by strange gambols.
 Nevertheless, did know one fox which for time at least showed no desire to leave his home among men. This fox had been obtained q did not ask how) by a laborer, one of those men of the woods who seem to be able to tame and win the attachment of animals. Charlie was mar velously tame, and would run to his mas ter wagging his brush and showing pleas ure as the man approached and when re- leased from the chain, scrambled up on to his masters shoulder, whence he would survey the world The man loved ami mals but he liked beer too and as he expressed it himself, when asked what had become of his fox, Well, sir, drunk him.
 So the fox came to us and was given compartment in dog kennel, fed at the same time, but separately from the ter riers. Of these he showed no fear, and they, after q day or two, and some ex- plantations, manifested no enmity to him. Very soon he learned to go out rating with us to respect the ferrets and watch the holes. As ratter he was supreme. The extraordinary swiftness Of his dart when the rats came out was thing to be remembered, and he was never, so known spring.
 or course. Charlie could have escaped easily, as after a time he was only shut mp at night and let out to run and play with the dogs Cwith whom he became great friends), including the two fox hound puppies that lived in a spare loose. box in the stable. Charlie's relations with these hereditary foes were very amusing for he literally taught them to hunt l may say that in front of the house was lawn with a belt of laurel bushes to hide the road on one side, on the other were two large pastures plant ed with circular copses and sloping down to long narrow belt of woodland, be- yond which was lane leading up to the home farm buildings
 Nearly every day Charlie would give the hounds hunt. First he would entice them to pursue him, then when they were chasing him he would dart into the ever greens. Ine nOu1uS SOoli iiNo to PHs their noses down when they were un- sighted and the fox would slip under the iron railines and away to one or the cir- cular eopses. Then there was a regular 1unt through the woodlands. Sometimes anothe foxhound puppy from the 1afm would join in the fun, and occasionally favorite old bloodhound belonging to q neighbor. The fox used to set them pug zles. 1 have seen him creep out of one of the circular copses mentioned above, run all around 1t and slip In agaln, ap- parently going away on the farther slde' while the hounds were picking out hls line. Charlie always won; he used to re- turn panting and smiling all over his face to the lawn; sometimes the dogs hunted patiently up to the house, some times they gave it up,
 1aarlie always returned. and never, l think wandered far from the house and it's surroundings. He had, l think, some thing of a dogs fear Of the unknoWh- The end came after he had been with us about year. It was a clear moonlight night in the early spring, and l was waking about smoking last pipe, hs- tening to the hooting of the owls and the occasional bark of fox on wooded ridge about half a mile or more away. Then l heard a suppressed sound. half ,,hine. half sob, and going toward theN kennels l saw Charlie pressed against the bars and crying, as 1t were, softly to himself just like d dog in trouble or in pain. It was Char--e answering the call of the wild which we, too, feel when we know that we must leave kindred and our fathers house and travel into strange lands Those who have themselves felt the call will sympathize with me when I say that 1 opened the gate and Charlie slid out and melted away into the shad- owl. Nor did we sec him again for many a -ong day. Indeed, I never did see him. His kennel was always left open and the water pan filled in case he might want a refuge.
 Soon after this went to India, but a letter told me of Charities last visit to his old home. The whole family were called out one afternoon in November by the sound of hounds running hard The rich notes of the pack came nearer, then the chordus stopped suddenly, leaving that silence which is not merely stiffness but q deprivation of sound in the softly keen November afternoon. This was the pack crossing the lane. and then in the strip of woodland the clamor broke out again, eager, insistent, savage, as of hounds running for blood. Charlie soon after appeared very weary, very draggled, crept into his kennel and one of the spec tators declared that he winked at them a. he did so.
 Needless to say, the door was changed
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