ORDER CARNASSIER. 361 



purpose of observation with slow and hesitating steps, and 

 by indirect and circuitous paths. Accordingly whenever 

 he is agitated by a permanent source of fear, he betakes 

 himself to flight, and proceeds to seek in some other retreat 

 that security which he can no longer enjoy in his present 

 abode. He passes the live-long day at the bottom of his 

 hiding-place, and sallies forth in search of prey, only during 

 the obscurity of twilight and the darkness of night. Guided 

 with equal certainty by the sense of smelling as of sight, he 

 glides along the trenches of the field to surprise the Par- 

 tridge on her nest, or the Hare within her form. Some- 

 times he will lie in ambush near the burrows of Rabbits, 

 into which he even occasionally penetrates, and sometimes 

 with the cry of a Dog, he gives chase to those animals in 

 the open plain. When game of this description fails, he 

 will subsist on Field-Mice, on Frogs, on Snails, and on 

 Grasshoppers. In cultivated and well-inhabited countries, 

 the Fox finds new resources. He approaches the habita _ 

 tions to collect the refuse of provisions thrown out of 

 kitchens, fyc. He penetrates into poultry-yards, where he 

 makes terrible devastation ; and in autumn he will enter the 

 vineyards, and feed upon the grapes, which fatten him, and 

 diminish in some degree the disagreeable odour of his flesh. 

 But he does not limit himself to the quantity of food neces- 

 sary to appease the hunger of the moment. Instinct leads 

 him, where there is abundance of prey, to lay up provision 

 for the future. When he invades a poultry-yard, he kills 

 all he can, and carries away successively every piece, which 

 he conceals in the neighbourhood to retake them at a more 

 convenient opportunity. 



This character of extreme prudence in the Fox is a main 

 cause of his preservation. It renders him extremely diffi- 

 cult to be destroyed or taken. As soon as he has ac- 

 quired a little experience, he is not to be deceived by the 

 snares which are laid for him, and from the moment in 



