CANIS VULPES. 95 



mice, moles, frogs, lizards. It will likewise readily devour any cheese and 

 butter which it may find. Even worms and beetles are eaten by it, as 

 also fish, mollusks, and crabs by Foxes which live near the sea and can 

 find such left on land by the tide. Carrion, moreover, does not come 

 amiss, nor vegetable food, especially fruit, when animal matter is scarce. 



The Fox will give forth a variety of different sounds according to 

 circumstances yelping, barking, screaming, or sometimes when at 

 rest emitting a gentle murmur. 



The tricks and wiles practised by Foxes when hunted are so well 

 known in England, that any details on the subject would be here out 

 of place. Col. Hamilton Smith considered that in such matters English 

 Foxes had educated themselves far above their continental fellows ; but 

 this might be expected from our persistent fox-hunting having gradually 

 exterminated all the less sagacious and less wily individuals. 



The peculiar and penetrating odour of the Fox (due to the secretion 

 formed by its subcaudal gland) and the absence of it in the dog * may 

 be one reason why the fox and dog will not breed together, as we have 

 seen the dog and jackal and the dog and wolf will do. 



The Fox becomes adult in a year and a half or soon after, and is said 

 to live thirteen or fourteen years. It seems hardly susceptible of being 

 thoroughly tamed, and certainly is much less capable of attachment than 

 either the jackal or the wolf. 



The Fox has, compared with most of the species already here described, 

 a long, sharp, and very specially pointed muzzle and a very long and 

 bushy tail, the " brush " being more or less cylindrical in outline for a 

 great part of its length. The eyes are oblique, and their pupils become 

 nearly linear when exposed to strong light. 



The general colour of the English Fox is fulvous on the head, back, 

 and sides, and .on the outside of the upper part of the limbs. The 

 cheeks, upper lip, belly, inner side of the limbs, and the end of the tail are 

 white. The throat and chest are greyish or whitish, and the shoulders 

 are mostly reddish grey. There is a black mark between the inner angle 

 of the eye and the mouth. The anterior aspects of the limbs, from a 



* See Buffon's remark, op. cit. p. 81. 



