58 SQUIRRELS AND OTHER FUR-BEARERS 



wind and speed ; and only a wound or a heavy 

 and moppish tail will drive him to avoid the issue 

 in this manner. 



To learn his surpassing shrewdness and cun- 

 ning, attempt to take him with a trap. Rogue 

 that he is, he always suspects some trick, and 

 one must be more of a fox than he is himself to 

 overreach him. At first sight it would appear 

 easy enough. With apparent indifference he 

 crosses your path, or walks in your footsteps in 

 the field, or travels along the beaten highway, or 

 lingers in the vicinity of stacks and remote barns. 

 Carry the carcass of a pig, or a fowl, or a dog, to 

 a distant field in midwinter, and in a few nights 

 his tracks cover the snow about it. 



The inexperienced country youth, misled by 

 this seeming carelessness of Reynard, suddenly 

 conceives a project to enrich himself with fur, 

 and wonders that the idea has not occurred to 

 him before, and to others. I knew a youthful 

 yeoman of this kind, who imagined he had found 

 a mine of wealth on discovering on a remote side- 

 hill, between two woods, a dead porker, upon 

 which it appeared all the foxes of the neighbor- 

 hood did nightly banquet. The clouds were 

 burdened with snow ; and as the first flakes com- 

 menced to eddy down, he set out, trap and broom 

 in hand, already counting over in imagination the 



