THEBOGTRIBE. 77 



(ation and prcpaies his bed under hard ground, in brakes, woods, 

 nr coppices : he is careful to contrive proper outlets to escape from 

 danger : his abode is generally near the habitations of men, in the 

 neighborhood of some farm-yard or village, whither he can resort, 

 when all is quiet, to supply himself with poultry. His manner of 

 attacking, killing, and carrying off his prey, all betokens the most 

 surprising caution, sccresy, and craft : he is a most adept and 

 successful thief, and seldom makes a fruitless expedition. This 

 animal profits much by experience ; if he is ensnared by a favorite 

 lure in the days of his inexperienced youth, he can never after- 

 wards be caught by the same expedient j he seems to smell the 

 very iron of the trap, and carefully avoids it. 



On the banks of the Kentucky river rise huge rocky bluffs 

 many feet in height. A fox that lived near this river was con- 

 stantly hunted, and as regularly lost over the bluff. Now, nothing 

 short of wings would have enabled the animal to escape with life 

 down a perpendicular cliff. At last, a hunter, being determined 

 to discover the means by which the animal baffled them, concealed 

 himself near the bluff. 



Accordingly, in good time the fox came to the top of the 

 cliff as usual and looked over. He then let himself down the face 

 ■)f the cliff by a movement between a leap and a slide, and landed 

 on a shelf not quite a foot in width about ten feet down the cliff. 

 The fox then disappeared into a hole above the shelf. On ex- 

 amination, the shelf turned out to be the mouth of a wide fissure 

 in the rock, into which the fox always escaped. But how was he 

 t» gee out again ? He might slide down ten feet, but he could 

 never leap ten feet from a ten-inch shelf up the face of a perpen- 

 dicular rock. This impossibility struck the hunter's mind, so he 

 instituted a search, and at length discovered an easier entrance 

 into the cave from the level ground. 



The fox was too wise to use that entrance when the hounds 

 were behind him, so he was accustomed to cut short the scent by 

 dropping down the rock, and tl er, when all the dogs were at the 

 edge of the cliff, he walked out at his leisure by the other 

 entrance. 

 7* 



