THE EDUCATION OF THE FOX 35 



them of so many dangers and teaches them so 

 many things, instructs her young as to the dangers 

 of being hunted. But heredity and training have 

 already made the young fox an evasive, elusive, and 

 wary animal. The cubs avail themselves at once of 

 the advantage of the thick undergrowth. They know 

 every passage, and an animal which can at a pinch 

 squeeze through a six-inch drain-pipe finds it easy to 

 move about in the strongest covert. On the other 

 hand the great blundering foxhound puppy, half 

 wild with excitement, with the scent of the fox in his 

 nostrils, the maddening cry of his fellows in his ears, 

 and the hereditary joy of the chase thrilling his whole 

 nature, crashes through the undergrowth and comes 

 out at last, half smothered with heat and torn by 

 brambles, into the grass ride for a breath of air, as 

 a diver rises from the water. The scent at first is 

 catchy, but as the air grows warmer it holds better. 

 The young hounds grow steadier, and the advantage 

 is less and less with the fox. The heat becomes 

 overpowering in the wood, and it is possibly again a 

 reminiscence of the experiences of his race when he 

 realises that he must die or go away. Now we see 

 an instance of a truth too often forgotten : that while 

 what we call instincts are common to a whole race, 

 they exist in very varying degrees in individuals. 



D a - 



