FOX. 429 



singular, we always found the trap sprung. My companion 

 insisted that the animal dug beneath it, and putting his paw 

 beneath the jaw, pushed down the pan with safety to himself; 

 but though the appearance seemed to confirm it, I could hardly 

 •credit his explanation. This year, in another locality of the 

 same region, an old and experienced trapper assured me of its 

 •correctness, and said in confirmation that he had several times 

 ■caught them, after they had made two or three successful 

 attempts to spring the trap, by the simple expedient of setting it 

 upside down, when of course the act of undermining and touch- 

 ing the pan would bring the paw within the grasp of the jaws. 



In connection with traps, my friend Dr. Rae has 

 <jommunicated to me a highly remarkable instance of the 

 display of reason on the part of the Arctic foxes. I have 

 previously published the facts in my lecture before the 

 British Association in 1879, and therefore shall here quote 

 them from it : — 



Desiring to obtain some Arctic foxes. Dr. Rae set various 

 kinds of traps ; but as the foxes knew these traps from previous 

 experience, he was unsuccessful. Accordingly he set a kind of 

 trap with which the foxes in that part of the country were not 

 acquainted. This consisted of a loaded gun set upon a stand 

 pointing at the bait. A string connected the trigger of the gun 

 with the bait, so that when the fox seized the bait he discharged 

 the gun, and thus committed suicide. In this arrangement the 

 gun was separated from the bait by a distance of about 30 yards, 

 and the string which connected the trigger with the bait was 

 concealed throughout nearly its whole distance in the snow. 

 The gun-trap thus set was successful in killing one fox, but 

 never in killing a second ; for the foxes afterwards adopted 

 either of two devices whereby to secure the bait without injur- 

 ing themselves. One of these devices was to bite through the 

 string at its exposed part near the trigger, and the other device 

 was to burrow up to the bait through the snow at right angles 

 to the line of fire, so that, although in this way they discharged 

 the gun, they escaped with perhaps only a pellet or two in the 

 nose. Now both of these devices exhibited a wonderful degree 

 of what I think must fairly be called power of reasoning. I 

 have carefully interrogated Dr. Eae on all the circumstances of 

 the case, and he tells me that in that part of the world traps 

 are never set with strings ; so that there can have been no 

 special association in the foxes' minds between strings and 

 traps. Moreover, after the death of fox No.-l, the track on 



