THE FOX. 



VIVITUR RAPTO. 



This animal is well known in England, where 

 it is more prized, and more persecuted, than 

 perhaps in any other country of the known world. 

 Every child in the nursery, is taught that the 

 " grapes are sour;" and the nurse assures him, 

 that they are the fox's own words ; whilst every 

 hen-wife throughout the land, is eternally plotting 

 its destruction. 



Were it not, that in these populous districts we 

 turn the bodily services of this, our last beast of 

 chase, to good account, its bones would long ago, 

 have mouldered into dust, with those of its for- 

 midable predecessors, the bear and the wolf; for, 

 in fact, our farmers cannot tolerate the sight of 

 Keynard, and the gamekeepers, those privileged 

 scourges of animated nature, would, at any time, 

 massacre his entire family. 



The fox may be styled first cousin to the dog, 

 (for these two animals will breed together) and 



