F O X. 



527 



the sea-coast. Grapes, and other sweet fruits, he 

 manifests a predilection for, and will boldly attack 

 wild bees to get at their stores. When assailed by 

 the hosts which fasten on iiiin with their stings, he 

 retires, but only tor a few minutes, rids himself of his 

 opponents by rolling on the ground, and crushing all 

 that stick to him, and then returns to the charge, and 

 devours both honey and wax. 



The active foresight of the fox will often prompt 

 him, even when sated with food, to prolong his 

 researches, less with the intention of discovering 

 fresh booty than of exploring the details of his future 

 resources. Thus he frequently returns to the various 

 holes which he has cleared, surveys them with 

 much precaution, enters into them, and slily examines 

 their different issues. He approaches objects that 

 are new to him with cautious slowness, and which, on 

 account of their novelty, excite his suspicion and 

 distrust. This timid prudence, however, completely 

 disappears in the female fox when she has young ones 

 to nurse and defend. The maternal instinct which, 

 in all species, the human not excepted, is probably 

 the strongest of all feelings, effaces the specific 

 character of the animal. There is no sentiment so 

 completely disinterested as this, none in which the 

 sacrifice of self is so instantaneous and so complete. 

 The mother will not hesitate a moment to endure 

 the utmost privation, to brave the most appalling 

 danger, nay, to encounter the certainty of death, for 

 the preservation of her infant offspring. She that, 

 but a little before, was all gentleness, shrinking 

 timidity, and fastidious delicacy, who could not bear 

 the winds of Heaven to visit her face too roughly, on 

 the sudden becomes bold, fierce, and resolute, un- 

 shaken by all that is trying, and unrevolted by all that 

 is disgusting. The female fox watches incessantly 

 over her young, provides for all their wants with un- 

 wearied assiduity, and exhibits an audacity very 

 foreign to her general disposition against their most 

 formidable adversaries. 



We should be inclined to trace this maternal in- 

 stinct, if we might presume to conjecture at the 

 proximate cause of it, like many other powerful 

 sentiments in animal nature, to some sensation of 

 physical pleasure by which its exercise is accom- 

 panied. Those feelings, even in man, which assume 

 for a time the completes! domination over his consti- 

 tution, have sensual pleasure as their origin and 

 object, however remote their apparent distance from 

 such a source may be, however they may be glossed 

 over by high-sounding names, or to whatever degree 

 of refinement they may be spun by those mighty 

 casuists, vanity and self-love. Most of our feelings and 

 ideas, however refined and abstracted, are resolvable, 

 in their last analysis, into physical sensation, and the 

 closer their connexion is with this primal source, the 

 more impetuous and commanding is their influence. 

 If this be the case with man, it is much more strik- 

 ingly so with the brute creation. 



Foxes are generally in heat about the month of 

 February. They are then heard to utter very sharp 

 yelpings ; which commence like the barking of a 

 dog, and end in a sound resembling the cry of the 

 peacock. Gestation continues for from sixty to six- 

 ty-live days. When the female is ready for parturi- 

 tion, she prepares a bed for her young with leaves 

 and hay. She produces only once a year, and has 

 from three to eight young at a time. The cubs are 

 born like dogs, covered with hair, and having the 



eyes shut, and continue crowing for about eighteen 

 months. If the dam perceive the place of their 

 retreat to be discovered, she carries off her cubs, one 

 by one, to a more secure habitation. At about 

 three or four months old, the young foxes quit their 

 burrow. They abandon their parents with all conve- 

 nient speed, and at two years of age their growth is 

 completed. 



In the days of his inexperience, a favourite lure 

 will ensnare him, but, when apprised of its nature, the 

 same expedient becomes unavailing. He seems to 

 smell the very iron of the trap, and carefully shuns 

 it. If lie perceives that the means of ambush are 

 multiplying around him, he quits his place of resi- 

 dence, and retires into some more secure quarters. 

 Wan, with all his reasoning and machines, requires 

 himself much experience not to be over-reached by 

 the prudence and stratagems of this wily quadruped. 

 If all the issues of the kennel are beset with snares, 

 the occupant scents and recognises them, and, rather 

 than fall into them, exposes hjmself to the most cruel 

 and protracted privation of food. In confinement, 

 this state of alarm is neither mechanical nor passive, 

 for he leaves nothing untried to escape from danger ; 

 and, while a claw remains, he works at a new path, 

 hy which he often eludes the menaced ruin. In the 

 fox, in short, as in the wolf, we may remark an 

 aptitude to acquire habits, and to be regulated by his 

 reflections on existing circumstances. He is compa- 

 ratively ignorant and careless of his conduct when 

 no war is waged against him ; but, when the appre- 

 hension of pain or death, exhibited under various 

 forms, has produced multiplied sensations, which 

 become fixed in his memory, and give rise to com- 

 parisons, judgments, and inductions, he acquires skill, 

 penetration, and cunning. If the imprudence and 

 thoughtlessness of youth frequently make him deviate 

 from the right path, the experience of age corrects 

 his wanderings, and teaches him to discriminate 

 true from false appearances. Foxes sleep much dur- 

 ing the day, and lie, like the dog, in a round form. 

 In very warm and clear weather, he mav sometimes 

 be seen basking in the sun, or amusing himself with 

 his fine bushy tail. Mngpies, crows, and other birds, 

 which justly consider him as their common enemy, 

 will often give notice of his presence by the most 

 clamorous notes, and follow him a long way repeating 

 their outcries. 



The fox's skin is furnished with a soft and warm 

 fur, which, in many parts of Europe, is used for 

 muffs, boas, and lining of clothes. Vast numbers of 

 foxes, on this account, are taken in the Valais, and 

 the Alpine districts of Switzerland, insomuch, that a 

 Lausanne furrier is sometimes in possession of two 

 or three thousand skins, all procured in the course of 

 a single winter. Vast numbers of them are likewise 

 imported from Newfoundland and Hudson's Bay. 

 Notwithstanding the rankness of the fox's flesh, the 

 natives of the latter country eat it ; and even the 

 inhabitants of some parts of the continent of Europe 

 have recourse to it, during the vintage, when the 

 animals are fattened with the grapes. 



Fox-hunting, it is almost superfluous to mention, is 

 a very favourite diversion with many of the nobility 

 and gentry of this country, and that it is more zeal- 

 ously and successfully prosecuted in England than in 

 any other country in the world. When the fox finds 

 himself pursued, he generally makes towards his 

 hole, and, penetrating to the bottom, lies till a terrier 



