55 



No- 36 Vulpes Bengalensis- 



JERDON, No. 138, PAGE 149 ; INDIAN Fox. 

 This game and beautiful little creature is perhaps the most grace- 

 ful of all the small animals in India, It varies much not only in 

 color but also in speed, in different localities, a fox found on red 

 soil where food is probably not easily procured, will always give a 

 better run although he is seldom so handsome, large or well fur- 

 nished with a brush as one that lives on black cotton soil. The 

 foxes too, found about the grassy plains, between backwaters, and 

 the sea, are generally very fit to run and give an excellent course 

 with Arab or half-English dogs. I have, like Jerdon, page 1 50, 

 seen one hunting quail, have often seen them with all sorts of other 

 animals and insectivorous birds, busy at a white ant's nest during 

 flight time and once near Hyderabad in the Deccan saw one spring- 

 ing out of the grass and catching moth after moth as they passed 

 him just before dusk much in the way a tame cat does on a sum- . 



mer's evening in England. I have never observed cats in India do 3 * 

 this. 



It is]a sad pity that this beautiful and game little beast of chase 

 is not^preserved ; it is rapidly becoming scarce all over India not 

 only from fair and unfair hunting, but because tank-diggers and 

 some of the wandering races of the country eat one whenever they 

 have a chance of digging it out. I once near Hyderabad, in the 

 Deccau, killed a silvery grey (or almost white in some parts) fox 

 with very short fur, and hardly any black tip to his brush which 

 was very thin. I at first thought when I laid the dogs into him 

 that he might have been white from age ; but he proved that he 

 had full use of his legs and wind could he have been a hybrid 

 with No. 139, "the desert fox?" page 151 of Jerdon, or is that 

 variety found so far south ? 



Foxes are wonderfully quick in taking advantage of ground ill 

 their efforts to escape from greyhounds. If a ravine is at right 

 angles to their line, they are almost sure to race direct for it, then 

 to drop into, and run up or down it for some distance, while the 

 clogs having taken it in their stride, are staring helplessly about. I 

 have seen them squat quite flat in any small tuft of grass or bushes 



