156 



FOXES. 



I have no doubt of their destroying the nests of 

 these insects for the sake of the young wasps, 

 and thus fulfilling one of the designs of Provi- 

 dence, in keeping down too great an accumula- 

 tion of those noxious insects ; but it is extra- 

 ordinary that Buffon should be ignorant of the 

 fact that wasps do not deposit honey in their 

 nests. 



Foxes utter most expressive sounds, and their 

 young are perfectly acquainted with them.* A 

 celebrated poacher and taker of foxes, now en- 

 gaged in a better calling, informed me that when 

 he has been in woods at night, the howl of foxes 

 would sometimes be incessant. At that time the 

 cubs would come fearlessly out of the earths, but 

 if the old ones, aware of his being in the wood, 

 uttered a peculiar and sharp scream, they imme- 

 diately retired into them, and nothing would then 

 induce them to come out. He told me, that he 

 has been for hours in a tree, waiting to see if the 

 cubs would come out, and fall into a hole he had 

 dug at the mouth of the earth and baited with a 

 fowl, but they never stirred if once they had 

 heard the scream of the old foxes. His only 

 chance of taking them was by poisoning the old 



* They vary their tones according to circumstances. Some- 

 times they bark and yelp, and at others are said to utter a me- 

 lancholy cry like that of a peacock. They have also a peculiar 

 cry when suffering from pain, but they never utter any, even in 

 the agonies of death. 



