Reynard, wherever you meet him, whether on the old road at twilight, or on the runway before the hounds, impresses you as an animal of dignity and calculation.  He never seems surprised, much less frightened; never loses his head; never does things hurriedly, or on the spur of the moment, as a scatter-brained rabbit or meddling squirrel might do.  You meet him, perhaps as he leaves the warm rock on the south slope of the old oak woods, where he has been curled up asleep all the sunny afternoon. (It is easy to find him there in winter.) Now he is off on his nightly hunt; he is trotting along, head down, brows deep-wrinkled, planning it all out.

“Let me see,” he is thinking, “last night I hunted the Draper woods.  To-night I’ll cross the brook just this side the old bars, and take a look into that pasture-corner among the junipers.  There’s a rabbit which plays round there on moonlight nights; I’ll have him presently.  Then I’ll go down to the big South meadow after mice.  I haven’t been there for a week; and last time I got six.  If I don’t find mice, there’s that chicken coop of old Jenkins.  Only”—­He stops, with his foot up, and listens a minute—­“only he locks the coop and leaves the dog loose ever since I took the big rooster.  Anyway I’ll take a look round there.  Sometimes Deacon Jones’s hens get to roosting in the next orchard.  If I can find them up an apple tree, I’ll bring a couple down with a good trick I know.  On the way—­Hi, there!”

In the midst of his planning he gives a grasshopper-jump aside, and brings down both paws hard on a bit of green moss that quivered as he passed.  He spreads his paws apart carefully; thrusts his nose down between them; drags a young wood-mouse from under the moss; eats him; licks his chops twice, and goes on planning as if nothing had happened.

“On the way back, I’ll swing round by the Fales place, and take a sniff under the wall by the old hickory, to see if those sleepy skunks are still there for the winter.  I’ll have that whole family before spring, if I’m hungry and can’t find anything else.  They come out on sunny days; all you have to do is just hide behind the hickory and watch.”

So off he goes on his well-planned hunt; and if you follow his track to-morrow in the snow, you will see how he has gone from one hunting ground directly to the next.  You will find the depression where he lay in a clump of tall dead grass and watched a while for the rabbit; reckon the number of mice he caught in the meadow; see his sly tracks about the chicken coop, and in the orchard; and pause a moment at the spot where he cast a knowing look behind the hickory by the wall,—­all just as he planned it on his way to the brook.