Where Silence Is Eloquent 



in a brute. Remember that this male fox was 

 far away on his own affairs when his mate was 

 captured, and he had no means of knowing where 

 she had gone: he simply missed her from her ac- 

 customed haunts, and sought till he found her. Re- 

 member also that a male fox is never allowed to 

 come near his mate's den ; that when she is heavy 

 with young, as this vixen was when caught, he 

 may join her of an evening and hunt for her, or 

 bring her food that he has killed, but always, I 

 think, at a distance from the place where she 

 intends to bring forth her cubs. That the male, 

 after missing his mate and yapping for her in vain 

 through the woods, should at last seek her at the 

 forbidden den, and there find the scent of men 

 and conclude that they had taken her away; that 

 he should follow the scent of a wagon-wheel over 

 five miles of country roads, or else explore all the 

 neighboring villages till he found what he sought; 

 that he should then lay out a different trail, more 

 secret and more reasonably safe, for his second 

 visit, all this is to me more ingenious, more un- 

 natural and more incredible than that his mate 

 should silently call him, as his mother had prob- 

 ably many times called him from the den when he 

 was a cub, and that he should feel and answer her 

 summons. 



Such reasoning is purely speculative, but there 

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