THE FOX. 91 



artfulness which is apparently unique. The extraordinary 

 way in which he will feign himself dead, whether when 

 hunting or being hunted, is a proof of this, as are also the 

 various tricks he will resort to, to throw his pursuers off the 

 scent Captain Brown tells a story of a fox who leapt a 

 high wall and crouched under it on the further side until 

 the hounds had passed over, and then quietly returned, giving 

 them the slip. Another fox who suddenly baffled two blood 

 hounds who were in hot pursuit, was discovered lying full 

 length upon a log of wood from which at first it was difficult 

 to distinguish him. When feigning death he is said some- 

 times to hold his breath and hang out his tongue. He will 

 sometimes baffle his pursuers by hanging on to a branch of 

 a tree. 



The FOX as Mr. St. John tells the following story of the 

 Hunter. f ox as a hunter: 'Just after it was daylight 

 I saw a large fox come very quietly along the edge of the 

 plantation. He looked with great care over the turf wall 

 into the field, and seemed to long very much to get hold of 

 some of the hares that were feeding in it, but apparently 

 knew that he had no chance of catching one by dint of 

 running. After considering a short time, he seemed to have 

 formed his plans, examined the different gaps in the wall, 

 fixed upon one which appeared to be most frequented, and 

 laid himself down close to it in an attitude like that of a cat 

 at a mouse hole. In the meantime I watched all his plans. 

 He then with great care and silence scraped a small hollow 

 in the ground, throwing up the sand as a kind of screen. 

 Every now and then, however, he stopped to listen, and 

 sometimes to take a most cautious peep into the field. When 

 he had done this, he laid himself down in a convenient 

 posture for springing on his prey, and remained perfectly 

 motionless, with the exception of an occasional reconnoitre 

 of the feeding hares. When the sun began to rise, they 

 came, one by one, from the field to the plantation: three 



