212 THE FOX. 



Be this as it may, so long as England lasts, the general opinion will 

 be that the fox is a sly, cautious, prying, and calculating animal. 

 However, endow it with whatever superior faculties you choose, it 

 has no claim to rationality. Some of its actions are certainly so 

 clever, that you feel quite inclined to raise it to a rank above that of 

 its fellow-brutes ; whilst others again are so absurd, and so devoid 

 of anything like design, that you must absolutely change the favour- 

 able opinion which you have entertained of its abilities, and lower its 

 intellect to that of the surrounding quadrupeds. When the good 

 Jesuit Fathers at Stonyhurst saw that nothing short of severe pro- 

 hibition could coerce me, when I was bent upon a ramble amongst 

 the birds and beasts of the neighbourhood ; and fearing, at the same 

 time, that I should set a bad example to the scholars by transgress- 

 ing the boundary prescribed to them by the rules of the college, they 

 wisely determined to make me a privileged boy, by constituting me 

 both rat and fox catcher there being no hounds kept in the neigh- 

 bourhood. Armed with this authority, I was always on the alert 

 when scholastic duties allowed me a little relaxation ; and I became 

 the scourge of noted thieves, such as foumarts, stoats, weasels, and 

 Hanoverian rats. 



Once it so happened that Reynard (and possibly other members 

 of his family) had made an excellent supper on an unprotected flock 

 of fine young turkeys, about half-grown, the property of the esta- 

 blishment. Eight of these were missing the next morning. It 

 seems that, after the four-footed thief had satisfied his call of hunger, 

 he naturally bethought himself that his wife and children would like 

 a bit of turkey for supper on the following night, so he buried five 

 of the remaining victims in an open garden which was close by. 

 Now, if the simpleton had covered them all over with the soil on 

 the garden bed, I would have given him credit for superior sagacity \ 

 but he actually left one wing of each bird exposed to view ; and it 

 was this exposure which led to their discovery. I could not possibly 

 mistake as to who had been the sexton, for, when I had disinterred 

 them, each bird emitted that odour which a fox alone produces. 

 Thus, whilst I admired the pains which Reynard had taken in cover- 

 ing up the turkeys, I condemned his folly and want of judgment in 

 leaving the wings of his murdered prey exposed to the eyes of the 



