and Economy of the Fox, 513 



the direction of the intromittent organ indicates this means of 

 defence as purely instinctive, whilst in the fox, we may judge 

 from analogy that it can sufficiently refine upon its natural 

 resources to employ them in a manner which bears full evi- 

 dence of a process of reasoning. I am, therefore, not disin- 

 clined to believe that the fox, as is asserted, contaminates the 

 entrance of the burrow of the badger, an uncommonly clean 

 animal, with its urine, and thus induces it to leave its habitation, 

 from which the fox could never drive the badger by main force. 

 The fox is also said to employ its urine with a view of oblig- 

 ing the hedgehog to open its coil ; and it is not improbable 

 that this means is resorted to when there is no brook or pond 



at hand into which the hedgehog can be rolled. 

 .... 

 The artificial way in which it is asserted the fox gets rid of 



its fleas, viz. by grasping in its mouth a wisp of hay, &c, 

 walking backwards into the water, and dropping the hay in 

 which the fleas have collected, may easily be shown to be a 

 fiction, as the fleas will not gradually recede from the water, 

 and assemble on the head of an animal which is slowly sub- 

 merged from the tail upwards. Otherwise there would be 

 nothing in the expedient that must at once condemn it as a 

 story ; for the fox does many things by way of experiment, 

 as it were; and, if any well-authenticated fact of the fox hav- 

 ing simulated death to escape from danger could be brought 

 forward, it must, I think, be explained on the experimental, 

 not the instinctive, principle. In an animal which often em- 

 ploys such unexpected and original means, we may even sup- 

 pose that one individual will, ceteris paribus, not behave like 

 the other, but that there exist in the species, to a certain de- 

 gree, gradations of reasoning power. 



I shall now communicate another case which does, perhaps, 

 belong to the same class, and, at all events, will, I hope, be 

 read with interest, as an instance of great boldness in the fox. 

 In 1814, an old fox was baited in a hall at Waltershausen 

 (Duchy of Gotha), to make young terriers sharp, to which 

 there was as usual added an old terrier. Every door and 

 window had been carefully secured or screened, but it was for- 

 got to shut the chimney of an iron stove belonging to an 

 adjoining room, wherein there was a blazing wood fire. After 

 some hard fighting, the fox, thinking, probably, that where 

 there was so much light there must be an exit, did the cool 

 thing of leaping into the fire, and was dragged out of the stove, 

 smothered with the flame and smoke. 



In 1820, I was present, in the principality of Saalfield, at 

 one of those butchering parties which have now, upon the 

 whole, ceased to be regarded as princely sport, and appear to 



