ANIMAL PSYCHOLOGY. 269 



seems to be an unavoidable inference that the fox 

 understood the means by which he was followed, and 

 that he possessed sufficient acuteness, as well as sub- 

 tlety of mind, to counteract, in these ways, the danger. 

 These expedients presuppose a consciousness of peril, 

 which of itself involves a knowledge of antecedent 

 occurrences; and the execution of the device shows 

 deliberation, conclusion, and an exercise of the will. 

 The acts themselves are unexplainable except as 

 manifestations of a free intelligence. 



This animal, whose cunning is proverbial, has been 

 known to simulate death, to secure his deliverance, 

 under circumstances somewhat trying to his fortitude. 

 A fox one night entered the hen-house of a farmer, 

 and after destroying a large number of fowls, gorged 

 himself to such repletion that he could not pass out 

 through the small aperture by which he had entered. 

 The proprietor found him, in the morning, sprawled 

 out upon the floor apparently dead from surfeit; and 

 taking him up by the legs carried him out, unsus- 

 pectingly, and for some distance to the side of his 

 house, where he dropped him upon the grass. No 

 sooner did Reynard find himself free than he sprang 

 to his feet and made his escape.' He seemed to know 

 that it was only as a dead fox that he would be al- 

 lowed to leave the scene of his spoliations; and yet 

 to devise this plan of escape required no ordinary 

 effort of intelligence, while its execution rather taxes 

 our confidence in his possession of such steadiness of 



^ This incident was communicated to the author by Coral C. 

 White, of Aurora, New York, who carried out the fox. His 

 veracity is unimpeachable. 



