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THE TRACKS OF A FOX 



Pekhaps of all our untamed quadrupeds, the fox i 

 has obtained the widest and most familiar reputation, 

 from the time of Pilpay and iEsop to the present day. 

 His recent tracks still give variety to a winter's walk. 

 I tread in the steps of the fox that has gone before me 

 by some hours, or which perhaps I have started, with 

 such a tiptoe of expectation as if I were on the trail 

 of the Spirit itself which resides in the wood, and 

 expected soon to catch it in its lair. I am curious to 

 know what has determined its graceful curvatures, 

 and how surely they were coincident with the fluc- 

 tuations of some mind. I know which way a mind 

 wended, what horizon it faced, by the setting of these 

 tracks, and whether it moved slowly or rapidly, by 

 their greater or less intervals and distinctness; for the 

 swiftest step leaves yet a lasting trace. Sometimes 

 you will see the trails of many together, and where 

 they have gamboled and gone through a hundred 

 evolutions, which testify to a singular listlessness 

 and leisure in nature. 



When I see a fox run across the pond on the snow, 

 with the carelessness of freedom, or at intervals trace 

 his course in the sunshine along the ridge of a hill, I 

 give up to him sun and earth as to their true proprie- 



' In spite of numerous fox-hunters, with their packs of trained hounds, 

 Reynard manages to survive in Concord, and it is still true — though to 

 a less degree than in Thoreau's day — that "his recent tracks give variety 

 to a winter's walk." H. W. G. 



