60 THE FOX 



from stick to stone, from stone to tree, from hedgerow 

 to wood. 



With the possible exceptions of the dog and cat, 

 whose domestication has sophisticated their minds, 

 the lower animals live almost entirely in the present, 

 scarcely looking forward at all, backward only so 

 far as memory helps them. It is clear that if, as I 

 think, the fox has its memory developed as being an 

 advantage to the race in the struggle for existence, 

 it will have developed in the most practically useful 

 directions. Thus the old fox, coming back and find- 

 ing his earth stopped, does possibly recollect that the 

 last time this happened he was hunted, and at once 

 departs for the day ; but I do not think that he has 

 any painful looking forward to the terrors of being 

 hunted, such as we should have. The law of self- 

 preservation prompts him to go away for his own 

 benefit and that of the race, and he goes. But not 

 always. If foxes do take a hint of coming trouble, 

 they are the wisest, oldest, and most experienced. 

 The average fox is but a wild beast. Foxes have the 

 desire of the carnivorous animal for sleep after food ; 

 and trotting off, excluded from his earth the fox will 

 curl himself up in a convenient place near at hand. 



The fox sleeps lightly, probably owing to the 

 fact that he has been hunted since the world 



