In your front-page report on July 3, you claim a 14-week-old baby was bitten four times by a fox.

While I accept a fox did bite the baby, it certainly did not bite it four times but only once.

If the baby had been bitten four times, there would have been up to 16 tooth marks on its head just from the fang' teeth, which, in effect, even humans have.

Some foxes can be very bold, indeed. Today a cub took food from my hand at our back door and also on July 1, when it also posed for close-up photos I took of it.

When the fox ran round Mr Peter Day's garden, all it was doing was looking for food, be it slugs, snails, worms or bird food. My cub does exactly the same then leaves the garden unless I call it, which is when it trots up to me and waits for scraps.

Foxes are beneficial to us for they eat chips and junk food thrown in our streets by takeaway customers.

If the foxes don't eat it then rats will move in and they bring serious diseases.

If Mr Day wants to discourage the fox, he might like to try using Renardine.

The liquid smells (says the Daily Mail) and convinces the fox it is on another's territory.

Mr P Whittington-Ince

Maple Road

Dartford

July 17, 2002 16:00