Stealing along in the dark of evening, the cunning and rapacious Fox
(Canis Vulpes) leaves his hole in the earth, and roams in search of his
prey. The poultry-yards, rabbit-warrens, and the haunts of game, tell of
his skilful depredations; but he is not at all difficult in his
appetite. To be sure, when he can get ripe grapes, he has a feast. If
young turkeys and hares are not to be had, he puts up with a young
fawn, a wild duck, or even weasels, mice, frogs, or insects. He will
also walk down to the sea-shore, and sup upon the remains of fishes, or
arrest the crabs and make them alter their sidelong course so as to
crawl down his throat. Reynard also has an eye to the future; for he
never lets anything escape which comes within his sharp bite, and as
there must be a limit to the quantity which any animal can contain, when
he cannot possibly eat any more, he, in various spots, well marked by
himself, buries the remainder for the morrow's meal. With only his toes
touching the earth, he prowls about with noiseless steps; his nose and
ears alive to the faintest sound or odour; his cat-like eyes, with
linear pupil, gleaming like coals of fire, and he suddenly springs upon
his victims before they are aware of his vicinity. His bushy tail is the
envied trophy of the huntsman, who calls it a brush. His colours are
white, black, red, yellow, bluish, or variegated; and in cold climates
he always turns white in winter. The father takes no care of his
children; but the mother performs her duty with the most exemplary
devotion for four months.
The fox is generally a solitary, suspicious animal; even when as much
tamed as he can be, he seems to think he is going to be deceived and
ill-treated: perhaps he judges of others by himself. He lives very often
in a burrow, called an earth, belonging to somebody else, for he has
very lax morals concerning property, and a great idea that right is
established by possession. If he should be caught and put in
confinement, he is very ferocious, or dies of ennui; but he is much too
coy and clever to be easily entrapped. His cry is a sort of yelp, which,
however, he is much too cautious to utter when he is earning his living.
Occasionally the fox has been caught in a trap, and there is the history
of one who escaped and left one of his fore feet behind him. After a
lapse of time, his trail was to be seen in various places, and was, of
course, easily recognized. This continued for two years, when he was
chased by Mr. St. John and easily killed. Another who was unearthed by
the dogs, instead of running after the usual fashion of these beasts,
turned suddenly upon each dog that came up and jumped over him. This
could not last long, although it puzzled the dogs very much; he was
taken, and then only was the reason for his manoeuvre discovered by
finding that he had only three feet.
Mr. St. John relates the following history of the cunning of a
fox:--"Just after it was daylight, I saw a large fox come very quietly
along the edge of the plantation; he looked with great care over the
turf wall into the field, and seemed to long very much to get hold of
some of the hares that were feeding in it, but apparently knew that he
had no chance of catching one by dint of running. After considering a
short time, he seemed to have formed his plans, examined the different
gaps in the wall, fixed upon one which appeared to be most frequented,
and laid himself down close to it, in an attitude like that of a cat at
a mouse hole."
[Illustration: THE FOX AND THE HARES.--Page 176.]
"In the meantime I watched all his plans; he then with great care and
silence scraped a small hollow in the ground, throwing up the sand as a
kind of screen; every now and then, however, he stopped to listen, and
sometimes to take a most cautious peep into the field. When he had done
this he laid himself down in a convenient posture for springing on his
prey, and remained perfectly motionless, with the exception of an
occasional reconnoiter of the feeding hares. When the sun began to rise,
they came, one by one, from the field to the plantation; three had
already come without passing by his ambush, one within twenty yards of
him, but he made no movement beyond crouching still more flatly to the
ground. Presently two came directly towards him, and though he did not
venture to look up, I saw, by an involuntary motion of his ears, that
those quick organs had already warned him of their approach. The two
hares came through the gap together, and the fox, springing with the
quickness of lightning, caught one and killed her immediately; he then
lifted up his booty, and was carrying it off, when my rifle-ball stopped
his course."
In Captain Brown's "Popular Natural History," I find the following:--"In
the autumn of the year 1819, at a fox-chase in Galloway, a very strong
fox was hard run by the hounds. Finding himself in great danger of being
taken, Reynard made for a high wall at a short distance, and springing
over it, crept close under the other side: the hounds followed, but no
sooner had they leaped the wall, than he sprang back again over it, and
by this cunning device gave them the slip, and got safe away from his
pursuers."
An American gentleman of Pittsfield, accompanied by two blood-hounds,
found a fox, and pursued him for nearly two hours, when suddenly the
dogs appeared at fault. Their master came up with them near a large log
of wood lying on the ground, and felt much surprise at their making a
circuit of a few roods without any object in view, every trace of the
fox seeming to have been lost, while the dogs still kept yelping. On
looking about him the gentleman saw the fox stretched upon the log,
apparently lifeless. He made several unsuccessful efforts to direct the
attention of the dogs towards the place, and at length he approached so
near as to see the animal breathe. Even then Reynard did not show any
alarm; but his pursuer aimed a blow at him with the branch of a tree,
upon which he leaped from his lurking-place, and was taken.
One of the drollest incidents in fox-hunting was that at Newry, in
Ireland, when, being pursued very hotly, the fox leaped on to the top of
a turf-stack, where he laid himself down quite flat. At last, one of the
hounds perceived him, and he was obliged again to run. After this, he
climbed up a stone wall, whence he sprang on to the roof of a cabin near
by, and mounting to the chimney top, from thence inspected his enemies.
An old hound, however, followed him, and was on the point of seizing
him, when Reynard dropped down the chimney into the lap of an old woman,
who was smoking her pipe at the corner. The hound did not dare to
follow, but the sportsmen came up, and entering the cabin, found it in
possession of the fox; the frightened woman and children huddled into
one corner, and the fox (who was taken alive) grinning at them.
In all ages of fable, the fox has been the principal hero. The most
ancient fables on record, those of Lokman, the Arabian, from whom Æsop
took most of his, gives him a very conspicuous place among the crafty
courtiers of the lion. The chief phrase of which the wily flatterer
makes use, as he bows with affected humility to his sovereign, is, "Oh,
Father of Beauty," by which indirect compliment he generally gains his
wishes. The early German writers have also chosen him as the principal
hero of various histories, and the poem of "Reynard, the Fox," will
live as long as printers and illustrators exercise their art and talent.
The Arctic fox is smaller than ours; even the soles of his feet are
covered with fur, like those of the hare, and he is altogether more
thickly clothed. He has often been supposed to be pied in colour, but
this is only in process of turning to the hue of winter. He is in these
climates a much more gregarious animal, and several families live in the
same earth. Bishop Heber mentions one in India, which feeds chiefly on
field-mice and white ants, and this probably is the species of which the
natives say, that he can turn nine times within the space of his own
length. He is about half the size of the European.
Much valuable fur is derived both from European and American foxes,
where there is a great variety of colour, not depending on temperature.
In Ireland there is a small animal called a fox, which does not eat
flesh, but contents itself with vegetables, and is so perfectly
harmless, that it roams about, unmolested even by dogs.