88 WILD NEIGHBORS CHAP, 
fly around, and, finding the attacker engaged, 
would have an advantage in a fight for life which 
no wild animal would ever allow another. Who 
ever heard of a fox saving himself by yielding his 
brush, as Siberian travellers are said to throw mit- 
tens, children, and the like, to bears that chase 
their sledges. The fact is, that about all of a fox 
which remains uninjured, and is preservable as a 
trophy, after the huntsman’s pack has pulled him 
down, is his brush, in which the dogs take no 
interest. 
If, instead of this wild escapade in evolution the 
writer quoted had devoted himself to showing that 
the short tail of most of the deer, antelopes and 
goats, and of rabbits and burrowing rodents, which 
are regularly chased by swift-footed canine beasts, 
was due to the gradual reduction of this append- 
age through natural selection, because length was 
a disadvantage in bulk and otherwise, without cor- 
responding service, he might have made an argu- 
ment both credible and interesting. These animals 
are pursued by the carnivora, which, when overtak- 
ing them, mzght seize a long tail, as they would 
have nothing to fear from their jaws. As a matter 
of fact this often happens to wild cattle, as used 
to be illustrated on our western plains —the fore- 
most wolf of the pack fastening himself to the 
buffalo’s tail, and dragging back until its compan- 
ions had reached and seized the nose and flanks 
of the retarded animal. It might be adduced in 
