THE FOX. 211 



own native wilds, is nothing superior to the surrounding quadrupeds ; 

 but that, when he has been educated, is well taken care of, and is 

 kindly treated, he becomes the servant, the defender, and the asso- 

 ciate of man himself, the universally acknowledged lord of all 

 created things. 



THE FOX. 



" Vivitur rapto." 



THIS animal is well known in England, where it is more prized and 

 more persecuted than perhaps in any other country of the known 

 world. Every child in the nurseiy is taught that the " grapes are 

 sour;" and the nurse assures him that they are the fox's own words; 

 whilst every henwife throughout the land is eternally plotting its 

 destruction. Were it not, that in these populous districts we turn 

 the bodily services of this, our last beast of chase, to good account, 

 its bones would long ago have mouldered into dust with those of its 

 formidable predecessors, the bear and the wolf; for, in fact, our 

 farmers cannot tolerate the sight of Reynard, and the gamekeepers, 

 those privileged scourges of animated nature, would at any time 

 massacre his entire family. 



The fox may be styled first cousin to the dog (for these two 

 ammais will breed together), and second cousin to the wolf; seeing 

 that all three will generate hydrophobia, and communicate it far and 

 wide even to man himself, as I myself can testify by several per- 

 sonal investigations. 



Common opinion seems to concur in attributing to the fox an 

 extraordinary amount of cunning "as cunning as a fox;" still, I 

 am not prepared to concede this prerogative to the fox alone, par 

 excellence, as I am acquainted with many other animals capable of 

 disputing the prize with it. Perhaps, people are inclined to give it 

 more credit for cunning than they do to other animals, on account 

 of the singular formation of its head and face, which, according to 

 our own notions of physiognomy, indicate the powers of cunning. 



