1896. CUNNING IN ANIMALS. 385 



commonly to be observed in deer, and other animals possessed of 

 marked curiosity. The baying of the hounds alone would probably be 

 sufficient to enable the fox to form a fairly accurate definition. 

 Seeking to escape from the cover without detection, but fully aware of 

 the fact that its pursuers are able to follow its track, probably 

 knowing that this following is by what we call scent, the fox runs with 

 all speed to the canal. The reason for crossing the canal must 

 necessarily be more or less matter of speculation, but in the case cited, 

 no other direction of flight was unguarded or without danger, by 

 reason of hounds or huntsmen and the ' field ' generally. We might 

 say, in a manner, that the fox was driven across the canal ; and 

 probably the first direction is not generally chosen by the fox so much 

 as controlled by the limits put upon its escape. At the same time 

 there seems a good deal of evidence to show that, when pursued, a fox 

 readily seeks water which may be near. It is commonly believed that 

 the fox knows that scent is lost in water, and further, that if its body 

 is wet its scent even on the ground is much less. So Leroy would 

 unhesitatingly say that the fox seeks to wet himself in order that his 

 track may be more difficult to follow. It is safer to believe, however, 

 that the fox seeks only to escape, and has experienced that, having 

 swam or run along through water, temporary respite from pursuit is 

 obtained. This in itself would be quite sufficient to account for a 

 hunted fox taking readily to water. Delay in pursuit being associated 

 with this passage through water, and the animal having in all 

 probability, as we have already hinted, a knowledge that the track is 

 followed by scent, it seems possible that by intelligence, but without 

 the process of reasoning, devices may be adopted by which the 

 difficulties of the pursuers will be still more increased, as when a fox, 

 coming to a shallow stream, enters the water and runs for some 

 distance in the track of the stream before quitting it. In the case in 

 point, the fox was too closely followed to spend time in the water, but, 

 having reached the other side, its acute senses no doubt made it aware 

 that, by some means or other, hounds were coming towards it along 

 the newly-gained canal bank. Confronted with this sudden develop- 

 ment, it evidently did not put any confidence in its wet trail, but 

 rapidly, having gone along the bank as far as it safely could, it 

 repeated the device of crossing the water. This, be it noted, entirely 

 defeated the hounds. 



I am, therefore, inclined to think that no higher process of 

 intelligence is required than that which may be described as the 

 purely animal one, in order that manifestations of cunning may be 

 explained ; and further, that the desire to attribute rational and highly 

 intellectual processes, springs from the easily acquired practice of 

 explaining animal actions by purely human formulae. 



W. L. Calderwood. 

 7, Napier Road, Edinburgh. 



