CLASS I. MAMMALIA: ORDER 5. CARNIVORA. 



243 



THE FOX BRINGING FOOD TO HER YOUNG. 



and destructive ; but let us not abuse our own minds by giving- a moral and therefore a damning 

 signification to these terms. lie lives as be was made to live, and simply obeys the laws of bis 

 existence. As he is a disturber of the peace, Ave claim the right to hunt him and extirpate his 

 race, by virtue of that charter which gave to man dominion ov.er the beasts of the field and the 

 fowls of the air. But we must do justice to Xature and the ways of the Author of Nature. We 

 see a fox steal our geese, our poultry, our lambs ; and, with a feeling of holy indignation, delight 

 to see him in a trap or the jaws of the hounds. But, take another view of the case. The fox is 

 impelled by hunger, and must eat or die; nay, he may have a family of young ones that must 

 starve if be fails to bring them food. Xo moral law restrains him : he has a perfect right to any 

 thing that comes in his way, although he must take the risk of seizing it. Look at the father or 

 mother fox, stealing out at nightfall, knowing that he is waylaid by steel-traps, that in the morning 

 the hounds will be on his track, that his every step is taken in peril of his life. Yet he braves 

 these dangers; he snatches the food from the very jaws of death, and hastens home, not to 

 appease his own hunger but to feed his children. Is there not something holy, beautiful, 

 touching in this — the cunning, thieving, reprobate fox, risking his life and forgetting his appetite, 

 to feed those that God has given him ] I believe that often, where man views with hate, God 

 looks down with benignity on his brute creation. May it not be, too, that even in respect to 

 human beings, even those who fall under the ban of society or the law, God is often more merciful 

 than the judgments of man \ Man would never have selected a thief on the cross to be an 

 example of mercy : that was the act of God ! 



The Gray Fox, V. Virginianus, is generally of a gray color, varied with black, the sides ami 

 neck yellowish red; the colors, however, differ in different specimens. The head is broader and 

 shorter than that of the red fox; the fur coarser, the legs longer, and the body thicker and of a 

 more clumsy aspect. As the red fox prevails at the North, this variety is most common at the 

 South. It is exceedingly voracious, but shy and cowardly. Among the planters of the South, it 

 is an object of aversion on account of its inroads upon the poultry. Although generally nocturnal 

 in its habits, it goes forth at all hours of the day, if necessity or taste incline. At night, it has a 

 hoarse querulous bark, sometimes one fox answering another. When hard pressed in the chase, 

 this animal frequently takes refuge in a tree, which it will climb to the height of twenty or thirty 

 feet. It feeds on partridges, quails, rabbits, and generally on such birds and quadrupeds as it can 

 capture. It does not usually burrow, but makes a kennel, furnished with' leaves, in a hollow tree. 



The American Cross Fox, V. decussatus. — The general color of this animal is red above, 

 and dark brown below : it is distinguished by a black cross on the neck and shoulders, and 



