Mammiferous Animals. 13.5 



took very great and sympathising interest. In the mean time, 

 I used to sit in my summer-house of an evening, and watch 

 master Reynard come out of his retreat ; and a great amuse-^ 

 ment it was to me. He would come slowly trotting along, to 

 a round gravelled place, where four paths met; then he 

 would raise himself on the sitting part, look about, and listen, 

 to ascertain that all was safe, and, being satisfied of this, he 

 would commence washing his face with the soft part of the 

 leg, just above the pad. After this operation was well per- 

 formed, he used to lie flat down on his belly and walk delibe- 

 rately along with his fore legs, dragging the rest of his person 

 along the gravel, as though it were quite dead, or, at least, 

 deprived of motion ; then he would run round and round 

 after his brush ; which I could see he sometimes bit pretty 

 severely, and on such occasions he would turn serious all at 

 once, and whisk his brush about in a very angry manner. 

 Poor fellow I a neighbour happened to see him cross the 

 ditch by moonlight into my garden with an old hen in his 

 mouth. The outcry was raised; a search was demanded. 

 Next day there came guns, dogs, pitchforks, and — neigh- 

 bours ; the upshot of all which was, that poor Reynard/s 

 brush is dangling in my little wainscotted room between an 

 Annibal Caracci and a Batista. — E, N. D. Dec. 14. 1833. 

 [Facts on the fox will be found in 11.457., IV. 11. 24., 

 VI. 207., VII. 181.] 



Instances of depraved Appetite in Mammiferous Animals, 

 (V. 714., VI. 364.) — Sir, The case of a dog's eating heath 

 mould, related in p. 714. of Vol. V., is, as you observe, 

 more strange than the case I have, in Vol. III. p. 364., 

 described, of a dog's eating oats, as oats are, as you have 

 observed, of the nature of part of a dog s food ; such as, 

 " bran, pollard, barley-meal," &c. : but I think that the dog's 

 eating mould was occasioned by a depraved appetite, similar 

 to that in human creatures who eat coals, mould, &c., of 

 which many cases are on record. I lately met with a case of 

 this disease, mentioned in a recent work on the West Indies. 

 The writer states that he saw a slave who was in the habit of 

 eating earth in large quantities. He seemingly considered it 

 a luxury. Yours, — J. M. Haughton le Skerne^ County of 

 Durham, August 20. 1833. 



A somewhat large, and a very interesting, collection of in- 

 stances of depraved appetite in the human species will be 

 found in Good's Study of Medicine. Humboldt, in his Tableaux 

 de la Nature, informs us that the Otomacs sometimes appease 

 their hunger by distending their stomachs with prodigious 

 quantities of slightly baked clay. 



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