508 Remarks on the Habits 



(Vol. I. p. 1. n. s.), I found two instances mentioned in which 

 the fox is said to have simulated death, with a view of duping 

 man, and of escaping from imminent danger. This expedient, 

 however, I must judge, from what I know of the habits of the 

 fox, it never resorts to. It is true that it simulates sleep when it 

 intends duping some prey ; but this it does with an aggressive 

 intention ; and, whatever " untoward event" may happen when 

 the life of the fox is at stake, the means to which it resorts I 

 have invariably found of the most active nature; nor do I 

 believe that any animal, whether belonging to the higher or 

 lower orders, does instinctively employ a means of defence 

 which does not confer on the animal some real protection, 

 though the protection may not always be sufficient for the 

 emergency. In the case of simulating death, the more vul- 

 nerable or delicate organs always take a position in which 

 they are screened by the hard, or even threatening, integu- 

 ments, as instanced by those Coleoptera which fold up their 

 legs ; the centipede, which rolls itself up in a spiral ; the uni- 

 valve and bivalve molluscous animals, that draw in their soft 

 parts, as the polypi do their tentacula. Of the higher ani- 

 mals, I may quote the familiar instances of the tortoise and 

 hedgehog ; and, as to the elate r, I may observe that the rigid 

 and immovable position is, at the same time, that which 

 enables it to take its leap. When, however, the higher ani- 

 mals, as the partridge and hare*, keep immovable, that 

 their locomotion may not draw upon them the attention of 

 some enemy, the case is quite different, as they do so with 

 their eyes open, and ready to start, though their volition is 

 sometimes paralysed by fear. 



Before I return to the two cases where the fox is said to 

 have simulated death, I may observe that the history of this 

 animal still teems with false notions, or points not quite settled. 

 It has been compounded, in the first instance, from the state- 

 ments of inaccurate reporters of what they had inaccurately 

 observed ; from the observations of unscientific huntsmen and 

 gamekeepers, who, besides being extremely superstitious, had 

 most of them a good spice of Baron de Munchhausen ; and, 

 as it is often impossible to refute an assertion by facts directly 

 opposite, and, as in former ages, almost any fiction could be 

 palmed upon mankind for truth, we shall find that the very 

 animals with whom man has become first acquainted are often 

 the least perfectly known. 



In applying this general remark to the fox, I shall first try 



* The fox does the same to let the men pass when the woods are 

 beaten up ; but, in crouching down on a stump, &c, on such occasions, he 

 is eagerly watching all the movements of the men near him. 



