74 NATURALIST'S CABINET. 



Account of the foxes in Bering's island. 



Of the manners of these sagacious animals an 

 ample and entertaining description has been, 

 ijivru by a writer of respectability who was also 

 an eye-witness of what he relates. 



" During my unfortunate abode," says Steller, 

 **. on Bering's Island, I had but too many oppor- 

 1 unities of studying the nature of these animals; 

 which far exceed the common fox in impudence, 

 cunning and roguery. A narrative of the innu- 

 merable tricks they played us, might vie with 

 Albertus Julius's History of the Apes on the 

 Island of Saxenburg. 



" They forced themselves- into our habitations 

 by night as well as by day, stealing all that they 

 could carry off; even things that were of no use 

 to them, as knives, sticks, and clothes. They 

 were so extremely ingenious, as to roll down our 

 casks of provisions; and then steal the meat out 

 with such skill, that at first we could not brinir 



o 



ourselves to ascribe the theft to them. While 

 employed in stripping an animal of its skin, it 

 has often happened that we could not avoid stab- 

 bing two or three foxes, from their rapacity in 

 tearing the flesh out of our hands. If we buried 

 it ever so carefully, and even added stones to the 

 weight of earth that was upon it, they not only 

 discovered it, but with their shoulders pushed 

 away the stones, by lying under them, and in 

 this manner helping one another. If, in order 

 to secure it, we put any animal on the top of a 

 high post in the air; thcy-ieither dug up the earth 

 G 



