TRACKS IN THE SAND SS 



side marks to distinguish her tracks which were 

 soon lost in the maze of others among the trees. 

 That the fox himself depends on his nose much 

 more than on his eyes, I have often demonstrated 

 but never so clearly as on a midwinter day when, 

 walking along the beach at low tide, I made 

 out a fox half a mile ahead of me, ambling about 

 on the upper beach. Once he layed down in the 

 sand and bit at his back as a dog does when 

 hunting fleas. Soon he ran over the hard wet 

 beach to the edge of the water, scanning every 

 bit of seaweed or driftwood on his way. The 

 wind was blowing from the sea to the dunes so 

 that it would have been impossible to stalk him 

 from the dunes. I therefore decided to test his 

 eyesight and walked straight towards him along 

 the beach where he would not get my wind. I 

 was in plain sight, but, although he apparently 

 looked at me as I approached, it was not until I 

 was within a hundred yards of him that he sprang 

 forward, ran up the beach like the wind and dis- 

 appeared in the dunes. No tracks were to be 

 seen on the hard surface of the sand until his 

 initial spring. 



