40 G. EOOPEE — BATS AKD SOME OTHER BEASTS. 



The fox is essentially a carnivorous animal, though not ex- 

 clusively so. We all know the fable of the fox and the grapes, 

 and he has been known to take not only grapes, but apricots, from 

 the wall. All weaker animals and birds furnish him with sus- 

 tenance, but rats and rabbits are his favourite food. The scarcity 

 of the latter, and the virtual extirpation of the hare, drive him to 

 shifts for his dinner which he would otherwise neglect or despise. 

 Hence his attacks upon the poultry -yard and the pheasant-preserve, 

 the latter of which, at least, would be comparatively safe could he 

 but procure rabbits. When hard-pressed he will eat frogs, or 

 mice, or even beetles. He will take a duck off the water, and fish 

 out of it, when spawning on the shallows ; in fact, when pressed 

 by hunger, nothing in the eating way comes amiss to him. 



The female produces from five to ten at a birth : the young ones 

 attain maturity, like the dog, in about a year, their strength and 

 sagacity increasing with age. The fox is, in fact, a typical wild 

 beast, with all the qualities that constitute a vrild beast. Strong, 

 crafty, and active, he seeks his livelihood from whatever source it 

 may be obtained. " The world is not his fi'iend, nor the world's 

 law," nor does he hold himself bound by it. Utterly untameable 

 through a life of captivity, chained to his kennel from his cubhood, 

 he retains his independent, savage nature, and though he may 

 sulkily submit to the caress of those who feed him, he can never 

 be domesticated or even tamed. On the slightest pretence he will 

 tear the hand that strokes him, and he neither feels nor affects 

 gratitude or affection towards his keeper. An innate love of blood 

 and slaughter leads him to kill, when he has an opportunity, far in 

 excess of the demands of appetite, and what he cannot eat he will 

 bury. In this delight in indiscriminate slaughter, as in the 

 other peculiarities I have mentioned, he differs from the dog, and 

 resembles more nearly the weasel and the wild cat. 



I have not concealed the little failings of the fox, but I venture 

 to think that any harm the hen-wife or the game preserver may 

 suffer at his hands is repaid a hundred-fold by the sport he affords 

 — a sport with which I verily believe our national prosperity 

 is bound up ; and happily there are few who, for the sake of the 

 comparatively selfish pursuit of shooting, will by his destruction 

 deprive himdreds and thousands of their enjoyment. That the 

 number should be so limited is creditable to human nature, for no 

 doubt it is a trial to a non-hunting man to have a lot of pheasants, 

 hand-reared at considerable expense, devoured by a fox, who will, 

 unbidden, take up his abode in the home coverts ; and the unselfish 

 man, who, for his neighbours' gratification, condones the loss, and 

 protects the robber, is entitled to the gratitude of the whole 

 country, and he has it. 



[As an example of an aquatic mammal, the Author described the 

 Whale, giving interesting information as to its habits. — Ed.] 



