190 THE COMMON FOX. 



and which arrive at maturity in about eighteen months. While 

 they are helpless, she exhibits great attachment for them, and 

 an unusual degree of boldness in defending them from aggression. 

 Several instances have been recorded of her carrying a whelp 

 in her mouth while pursued by the huntsmen, who in such 

 cases generally whip the dogs off, and suffer both parent and 

 offspring to escape. 



" A fellow feeling makes us wondrous kind." 



The fox, though it be taken and domesticated when very 

 young, never becomes thoroughly reclaimed. Its natural pro- 

 pensities cannot be completely subdued ; and Shakespeare is 

 quite right in declaring that a fox, ever 



so tame, so cherish'd, and lock'd up, 



Will have a wild trick of his ancestors.'' 



(Henry IV. Part I. Act V. Scene 2.) 



THE GREYHOUND Fox. 



This is not a distinct species from the common fox, but 

 merely a larger variety of it. " There are three varieties of 

 foxes," says Pennant, " found in the mountainous parts of these 

 islands, which differ a little in form, but not in colour, from 

 each other, and are distinguished in Wales by as many different 

 names. The Milgi or grey hound-fox is the largest, tallest, and 

 boldest, and will attack a grown sheep or wether ; the mastiff- 

 fox is less, but more strongly built ; and the Corgi, or cur-fox, 

 is the least, and lurks about hedges, out-houses, &c., and is the 

 most pernicious of the three to the feathered tribe."* Bewick 



mitively signifies a female fox, and in support of this he quotes from an 

 ancient manuscript entitled The Boke of Hunting that is cleped [called] 

 Mayster of Game: " The^fcrew of the fox is assaute [salt] once in the year. 

 She hath venemous biting as a wolf." But in Bailey's English Dictionary 

 (1770), vixen or fixen is given as signifying " a fox's cub, a little fox." I 

 believe, however, that Steevens is correct in regarding them as names 

 originally applied to the female fox, and her courage in defending her young 

 will easily explain how, in the present day, vixen is a term more particularly 

 applied to pugnacious ladies. 



* British Zoology (1768), vol. i. p. 61. 



