THE FOX AS A CAPTIVE 129 



individuals watch your tame fox's terror of, and dis- 

 taste for, strangers they will fraternise readily with 

 the dogs and cats about the place. This is only one 

 of the wonderful glimpses we obtain by careful obser- 

 vation into the minds of animals. The fox is probably 

 capable of the generalisation that man is the most 

 intelligent and dangerous of animals. He would, 

 could he speak, express of us exactly the same 

 opinion we have of him : ' An intelligent animal, with 

 some capacities for affection, but you can never trust 

 him.' Such in fox language would be the account 

 given by an escaped fox of his experience of man. 

 But with other animals there is a freemasonry. No one 

 can doubt that the lower animals have a kind of 

 common language, probably of gesture. This lingua 

 franca of the woods is very limited, but is also effec- 

 tive to warn of danger or to attract to food. 



The fox soon makes friends with the dogs and loses 

 all fear of them. There was a fox cub in the Duke of 

 Buccleuch's country that was put into a kennel with 

 terriers and hounds. He was soon on the best of 

 terms with them all. After a time, however, the 

 ancestral instinct for killing was too strong for him, 

 and a whole hecatomb of dead fowls one morning 

 caused the fox to be sentenced to the chain. But in 

 spite of this he would get loose at times, and then the 



K 



