THE FOX. 



73 



makes use of the badger's hole, and uses its urine to expel 

 the badger by the smell. Its usual colour is a reddish tawny, 

 though sometimes white, and even black. The fore-feet and 

 the tops of the ears are black ; the ears are erect, and the lips 

 are w^hite. It digs a hole for itself in the earth, and is with 

 difficulty tamed to lose its fierceness. The eye is most signi- 

 ficant of fear and hatred. 



In all countries the fox maintains the same cunning dispo- 

 sition, the same eagerness after prey, and commits the same 

 ravages among game, birds, poultry, and the smaller quad- 

 rupeds. It is a beast of chase, usually very prejudicial to the 

 husbandman, by taking away and destroying his lambs, geese 

 and poultry. It will feed on flesh of any kind, and when 

 urged by hunger it will eat carrots and insects, and the dung 

 of other animals ; and near the sea coasts, from want of other 

 food, it will eat crabs, shrimps, or shellfish. In France and 

 Italy it eats the grapes, and gets very fat upon them, and the 

 flesh is then reckoned to be good food. The fox is a great 

 destroyer of rats and other field animals. It secures its prey 

 by digging holes in several places, and there leaves it until the 

 calls of hunger induce him to find it for use. It generally 

 goes to a distance from its own haunts to commit plunder and 

 thefts. 



The fox is exceedingly voracious, and indisputably the 

 most sagacious and most crafty of all beasts of prey. He 

 eats flesh of all kinds, eggs, milk, cheese, and fruits. Young 

 hares and partridges are very favourite food, and rats, field- 

 mice, toads, serpents, and lizards. He is also fond of honey, 

 and destroys the hives of wild bees, wasps, and hornets. His 

 artful cunning has ever been proverbial : when wasps fix on 

 his body, he retires, and roils on the ground for the purpose 

 of crushing them, and soon returns to destroy the hive. He 

 fixes his abode in a wood near to some cottages, where he 

 listens to the crowing of the cock, and the cries of the poultry. 

 He scents them at a distance, and chooses his time — he con- 

 ceals his road as well as his design — hie slips forward with 

 caution, and sometimes even trails his body along. He leaps 

 the walls, or gets underneath, and ravages the court-yard, by 



