784 Quadrupeds. 



lawyer nor fox was to be found in their happy island. How long 

 that boast has been hushed with respect to the former I know not. 

 There exists a spirited engraving, representing the first lawyer being 

 hunted out of the island by the female portion of its inhabitants. 

 Whether this was right or wrong conduct on the part of the ladies, is 

 a question more delicate than I shall take upon me to decide ; for a 

 decision either way must involve me with one party or the other, and 

 I have no wish to quarrel with either the ladies or the lawyers. But 

 with respect to the fox, I shall be less scrupulous in the expression 

 of my sentiments. He certainly, whatever opinion may be enter- 

 tained touching the introduction of the lawyer, has done us no ser- 

 vice, nor is he likely to do us any. He was no doubt introduced, 

 and that not many years since, for the express purpose of being 

 hunted : nobody likes to confess to the fact of his introduction, and 

 where parties of high respectability are thought to be implicated, 

 no one likes to express his mind too freely. I, as the natural his- 

 torian, have to do only with the fact of his existence in the island. 

 Here he is, beyond all question, and sufficiently rapid has been his 

 increase. Extermination would probably prove impracticable ; but, 

 if his increase be not checked, the nuisance will become great. I 

 have myself tracked him where most certainly he was not invited ; 

 but foxes love hares and pheasants, and seldom wait for an invitation 

 where such delicacies abound. I, for my part, however, am no enemy 

 to the fox ; neither do I profess myself his friend exactly in the same 

 sense as do they who preserve him very carefully for the pleasure of 

 hunting him to death ; I admire both his personal and his mental 

 qualities : I do not mean to say that his proverbial cunning has any 

 peculiar charms for me, I hope, at least, it has not ; but I admire the 

 exercise of that strong sagacity with which its Creator has endowed 

 this animal ; and " live and let live" I believe to be as sound a 

 maxim when applied to the relationship between man and brute, as 

 when used with reference to the reciprocity of good feeling which 

 should exist between man and man. Not, however, that I have it in 

 my power to say much in favour of Reynard : he is a suspicious cha- 

 racter, at best ; for it is only when there is no hare, rabbit, pheasant, 

 partridge, duck, goose, or fowl for him to steal, that he will live ho- 

 nestly on " rats and mice, and such small deer ;" and he who can be 

 honest only when obliged to be so, is not the best member of society. 

 Probably in some countries the services of the fox are more valuable 

 than they are in this ; and, after all, it may have been only a wish on 

 the part of some right-minded naturalist to preserve the balance of 



