656 THE DOG. 



The female goes with young sixty days or more, and the 

 season of heat is in winter, so that she may bring forth 

 when young game is plentiful, and easy to be obtained. The 

 puppies are born blind, and remain so for ten or twelve days. 

 The mother is the most tender of nurses, and she keeps the 

 whelps carefully concealed until they are able to venture 

 forth. When she fancies that their retreat has been dis- 

 covered, she carries them away, one by one, in her mouth, 

 and takes them to a place of safety ; nay, she has been known, 

 after she had heard the noise of the hounds, and knew that 

 her life was at stake, to carry away her little whelps, before 

 she quitted the cover, to which she might never return. 



The Fox shews that he knows full well the purpose for 

 which he is sought by the numerous dogs, which, for our sport 

 and his destruction, we bring to the place of his retreat. 

 The wiles he employs to save himself are too familiar to need 

 to be mentioned. They are calculated to excite our admira- 

 tion and pity, even when they contribute to our pastime. He 

 makes every .effort to save himself which his wonderful sa- 

 gacity enables him to employ, and when at length, after the 

 fruitless exercise of his strength and powers, he is overtaken 

 by the pack, he sells his life bravely, though he knows that 

 it cannot be saved, and dies without a groan. 



The Fox, when taken young, is playful and familiar like 

 other dogs, and manifests his attachment to those who treat 

 him with kindness ; but even in captivity, he retains the in- 

 stincts of his race, of stealing upon the animals which are 

 his natural prey, as poultry of all kinds, and hence it is 

 necessary to keep him in confinement, so that it may be 

 doubted if a single instance has occurred in which a breed 

 of foxes has been subjected to true domestication. The 

 wolf, wild and fierce as he is, submits himself to the power 

 of superior reason : the fox seems to abandon tardily the 

 instincts proper to him. But the fox breeds with the do- 

 mesticated dog ; although, in the state of captivity, he does 

 so with reluctance, as if he feared to propagate a race of 



