160 



THE DESERT 



His subsist- 

 ence. 



His back- 

 ground. 



Ihefox 



does not often get it. For desert rabbits do 

 not go to sleep with both eyes shut. Failing 

 the rabbit he snuffs out birds and their nests, 

 trails up anything sick or wounded, and in emer- 

 gencies runs down and devours a lizard. If 

 animal food is scarce he turns his attention to 

 vegetation, eats prickly pears and mesquite 

 beans ; and up in the mountains he stands on 

 his hind legs and gathers choke cherries and 

 manzanitas. With such precarious living he be- 

 comes gaunt, leathery, muscled with whip-cord. 

 There is a meagreness and a scantiness about him ; 

 his coarse coat of hair is sun-scorched, his whole 

 appearance is arid, dusty, sandy. There is no 

 other animal so thoroughly typical of the desert. 

 He belongs there, skulking along the arroyos 

 and washes just as a horned toad belongs under 

 a granite bowlder. That he can live there at all 

 is due to Nature's gift to him of all-around clev- 

 erness. 



The fox is usually accounted the epitome of 

 animal cunning, but here in the desert he is 

 not frequently seen and is usually thought less 

 clever than the coyote. He prefers the foot- 

 hills and the cover of dense chaparral where he 

 preys upon birds, smells out the nest of the 

 valley- quail, catches a wood-rat ; or, if hard 



