FOX HUNTING IN AMERICA. 955 
elsewhere, by trees, shrubs, rocks, ‘holes, &c., renders the 
whole game of flight and pursuit a plain, straight-forward 
matter of hard running on both sides; so that it is no great 
wonder after all, if the heels of both the predatory and fugi- 
tive animals should be somewhat cultivated. As civilization 
is extended toward these remote regions, we shall know more 
of the habits of these fleet children of the solitudes, it is to be 
hoped. 
The Arctic Fox is more familiar to us, though really far 
more distant, and living among more unpropitious and appa- 
rently inaccessible fastnesses, locked in by icebergs, 
I shall merely say of it, that it is the only one of the genus 
which we think at all justifies the remark, that “a large fox 
is a wolf, and a small wolf may be termed a fox.” It is much 
more like the jackal and wolf in its habits; like them, it is 
gregarious, when pressed with hunger, and is known, like 
them, to hunt in packs. 
But the Red and Gray Foxes are the most interesting, for 
around them all the legendary and historical memorabilia 
of the genus cluster. This Red Fox must be the same mighty 
embodiment of quadrupedal treachery, upon whose sneaking 
head the indignant Chaucer loosened such an avalanche of 
bitter epithet and grand comparison— 
«OQ false morderour reecking in thy den! 
O newe Scariot, newe Genelon, 
O false dissimulour, 0 Greek Sinon, 
That broughtest Troye al utterly to roune.” 
And I fear he has not much improved in manners since; 
for so well is the slipperiness of his reputation understood, 
that his most earnestly solicitous friends, the sportsmen, not 
to speak of Naturalists, are to this day puzzled with regard 
to his identity. It is a question now of grave dispute, whether 
this “false morderour,” denounced into immortality by Chau- 
cer, be identical with the personage known by the same name 
amoung us—one party strenuously maintaining that the Red 
