This animal is famous for his craft, and he partly merits the
reputation he has acquired. What the wolf (_fig. 62._) executes by
superior strength, the fox (_fig. 63._) accomplishes by cunning.
Without attacking the shepherd, his dog, or even his flock, he
finds a more certain way to subsist. Patient and prudent he waits
the opportunity for depredation, varying his conduct according to
circumstances always reserving some arts for unforeseen events.
Self-preservation is his grand object, and though as indefatigable, and
more nimble than the wolf, he never trusts entirely to the swiftness of
his course, but contrives himself an asylum, where he retires in cases
of necessity, and in which he dwells and brings up his young.
_Engraved for Barr's Buffon._
[Illustration: FIG. 62. _Wolf._]
[Illustration: FIG. 63. _Fox._]
As among men, those who lead a domestic life are more civilized than
perpetual wanderers; so, among animals, the taking possession of a
home, supposes a superior degree of instinct. The choice of situation,
the art of rendering it a convenient habitation, and concealing the
entrance to it, likewise indicate superior skill and industry. Endowed
with both these, the fox turns them to his advantage. He fixes his
residence at the edge of the wood, yet not far from some cottage or
hamlet; he listens to the crowing of a cock, and the cackling of
other poultry; he scents them at a distance; he judiciously chooses
his time; creeps slily along; suddenly makes the attack, and rarely
returns without his booty. If he can get into the hen-roost, he puts
all to death, and retires with part of his prey, which he conceals at
some distance; he then returns for more, which he takes away and hides
in the same manner, though in a different place; and this practice
he continues, till, warned by the approach of day, or the movements
of the family, he retires to his den. He makes use of similar arts
with the fowler; visits the nets and springes very early in the
morning, expertly takes the birds out of the snare, carries them off
successively, and conceals them in different places, above all near
the edges of the roads where he sometimes leaves them for two or three
days, but is never at a loss to recover his hidden treasure when he
is in need. The young hare and rabbit he hunts down; the old ones he
seizes in their seats, and never misses those which are wounded; he
discovers the nests of partridges and quails, seizes the old ones
while they are sitting, and destroys a prodigious quantity of game;
so that if he is less injurious than the wolf to the peasant, he is
more noxious to the gentleman. The chace of the fox requires less
preparation, and is more amusing than that of the wolf. Though all
dogs have a great reluctance to the latter, they pursue the fox with
pleasure, and often in preference to the stag or hare. He is usually
hunted with hounds, assisted by terriers. The instant he finds himself
pursued he makes to his den, and takes refuge at the bottom, into
which the terriers will follow and keep him at bay, while the hunters
remove the earth from above. But as his kennel is often under rocks,
or among the roots of trees, he cannot then be dug out, nor is the
terrier able to contend with him at the bottom of his hole. In this
case he remains secure; but if he can be dug out, the usual way is to
carry him in a bag to some distance, and there set him loose before the
hounds. His shifts to escape, when all retreats to his kennel are cut
off, are various and surprising. He will then proceed in a direct line
before the hounds, but making to the most woody grounds, he takes to
those paths most entangled with thorns and briars, and seldom fails to
extremely harass and fatigue the dogs.
The most effectual method of destroying foxes, is to lay traps for
them, baited with flesh, live pigeons, or fowls. I once suspended on a
tree, nine feet high, some meat, bread, and bones, at which the foxes
had been so eager in leaping, that in the morning the ground round it
was beaten as smooth as a barn floor. The fox is extremely voracious;
for besides flesh, he eats with equal avidity, eggs, milk, cheese,
fruit, and particularly grapes. When he cannot procure a sufficiency
of leverets and partridges, he falls upon rats, mice, serpents, toads,
and lizards, which he destroys in great numbers, and thereby renders
one service to mankind. Insects, shell-fish, and even the hedge-hog,
at times, become his prey. He attacks bees and wasps for the sake of
their honey; they at first seem to force him to retire, by repeated
stings, but this is only to roll upon the earth and crush those
which have stuck to his skin; he then returns to the charge, and by
perseverance, obliges them to abandon their combs, when he devours both
wax and honey.[N]
[N] He seizes also hedge-hogs, rolls them about with his feet, and
compels them to unfold themselves; he eats likewise fish, lobsters,
may-bugs, grass-hoppers, &c.
The fox greatly resembles the dog in the internal parts. His head,
however, is larger in proportion to his body, his ears are shorter,
his tail more bushy, and his eyes more oblique. He also differs from
the dog by a strong offensive smell, which is peculiar to his species,
and also in disposition; for he is not easily tamed, can never be
rendered truly domestic, pines and dies of chagrin when long denied
his liberty. As we have already stated, he refuses to copulate with
the female dog. The foxes bring forth once a year, they generally have
four or five, seldom six, and never less than three. When the female is
pregnant, she seldom goes out of her kennel, where she prepares a bed
for her young. She is in season in winter, and there are young foxes in
April. When she finds her retreat is discovered, and that her cubs have
been disturbed during her absence, she endeavours to find a place of
greater security and carries them to it one after the other. They come
blind into the world, and like dogs also they grow from eighteen months
to two years, and live to the age of thirteen or fourteen.
The senses of the fox are as good as those of the wolf; his smelling
is more acute, and the organs of his voice are more supple and more
perfect. The wolf only howls, while the fox yelps, barks, and has
a mournful cry like that of the peacock. He varies his tones also
according as he is affected. He has tones expressive of desire, sorrow,
and pain; the latter of which he never uses but when shot or deprived
of some member, for he complains of no other wound, and like the wolf,
when attacked with cudgels only, he never utters a sound, but defends
himself with bravery and courage, though in obstinate silence until
the last gasp. He bites dangerously and with such determined fury that
it is difficult to make him quit his hold. His yelping is a kind of
quick barking, which he generally terminates by raising his voice and
resembling the cry of a peacock. In winter, especially during frost, he
yelps continually, but in the summer he is almost entirely mute, and
at this season he sheds his hair. The skin of young foxes, or those
taken in summer, are held in little esteem. The flesh of the fox is
not so bad as that of the wolf; dogs, and even men, eat it in autumn,
especially if he has been fattened with grapes; and in winter good
furs are made of his skin. He sleeps so sound that he may be closely
approached without being awakened; he sleeps in a round position like
a dog, but when he only means to rest, he stretches out his hind legs
and lies flat upon his belly. In this posture he watches for birds as
they perch on the hedges, who no sooner perceive him, than they set up
shrill cries to warn their neighbours against their mortal enemy: the
jays and magpies in particular will follow him for some hundred paces,
constantly repeating their cries as a warning. The fox has a very
disagreeable odour, which makes it necessary to keep them in stables
at a distance from the house, and this perhaps might be the reason why
those I reared were less tame than the wolf, with whom this precaution
was unnecessary. At the age of five or six months the young foxes began
to chace the ducks and fowls, upon which account I was obliged to chain
them, and although I kept these very foxes for more than two years,
they never attempted to touch a fowl while they were so confined; a
live hen was frequently fixed near them for a whole night, and although
they had previously been kept short of food, they never forget they
were chained, and the hen invariably remained unmolested by them.
The fox is so subject to the influence of climate, that the species
are almost as numerous as of any domestic animal. The generality of
French foxes are red, some few are grey, but all have the tip of their
tail white; the latter are sometimes called in Burgundy _coal-foxes_,
from having very black feet. In the northern countries there are foxes
of all colours; black, blue, dark and light grey, white, white with
reddish legs, white with black heads, white with the end of the tails
black, red with the throat and belly white, and lastly with a stripe
of black along the back and another crossing it at the shoulders; of
these the throats are also black and they are larger than the others.
The common kind are most generally diffused; they are not only in
Europe, but throughout northern and central Asia and in America; but
in Africa and the countries near the equator they are very rare. Those
who say they have seen them at Calcutta and other southern provinces,
must have taken the jackall for the fox. Aristotle falls into a similar
error, when he says, the foxes of Egypt were smaller than those of
Greece; those little Egyptian foxes being only polecats, whose stench
is intolerable. They are evidently the natives of cold climates, both
from their not being affected by extreme cold and their living in the
countries adjacent to both poles. The hair of the white fox is not much
esteemed, because the hairs fall easily off; the silver-grey is better,
and the blue and striped are prized on account of their rarity, but the
black is the most valuable, and yields to none but the sable. There are
foxes in Spitzbergen, Greenland, Lapland, and in Canada; in the latter
place there are some of the striped species, the common kind are not so
red as those in France, but their hair is longer and more plentiful.