50 THE FOX 



learnt not to say ' never ' about the habits of animals — 

 strike off a new idea on the spur of the moment. He 

 has almost to run his head into a rabbit-hole before 

 he will avail himself of it, if he is in a strange country. 

 Thus we perceive that the fox, like many clever people, 

 has his limitations. I should not like to say how much 

 or how little he sees, but I think that by day his scent 

 is much more useful than his sight. He knows, for 

 example, the earth or tree in his own country and 

 every path that leads to it. But he is probably not 

 capable of the calculation : ' Here is a wood, foxes 

 live in earths in woods, therefore very likely there is 

 an earth in this wood.' The strange wood is to him 

 absolutely dark, and presents no other idea than any 

 other feature of the country. Foxes that are being 

 hunted will skirt a wood and never enter it. They 

 know that a heated fox is smothered in a wood ; they 

 do not grasp the probability of an earth or a hollow 

 tree being within it. The mind of the fox, like those 

 of other animals, never goes beyond a certainty and 

 does not concern itself with probabilities. 



Another limitation to the fox's mind I have noticed 

 is that, although he often lies perfectly still while hounds 

 are drawing a covert, and so escapes for the time, 

 he nearly always moves too soon. In the Southwold 

 country is a long, rather narrow, and open copse on 



