CLASS I. MAMMALIA: ORDER 6. CARNIVORA. 
243 
THE BOX BRINGING FOOD TO HER YOUNG. 
and destructive ; but let us not abuse our own minds by giving a moi'al and therefore a damning- 
signification to these terms. He lives as he was made to live, and simply obeys the laws of his 
existence. As he is a disturber of the peace, we claim the right to hunt him and extirpate his 
race, by virtue of that charter which gave to man dominion over the beasts of the field and the 
fowls of the air. But we must do justice to Nature and the ways of the Author of Nature. "We 
see a fox steal our geese, our poultry, our lambs ; and, with a feeling of holy indignation, delight 
to see him in a trap or the jaws of the hounds. But, tahe another view of the case. The fox is 
impelled by hunger, and must eat or die ; nay, he may have a family of young ones that must 
starve if he fails to bring them food. No moral law restrains him : he has a perfect right to any 
thing that comes in his way, although he must take the risk of seizing it. Look at the father or 
mother fox, stealing out at nightfall, knowing that he is waylaid by steel-traps, that in the morning 
the hounds will be on his track, that his every step is taken in peril of his life. Yet he braves 
these dangers; he snatches the food from the very jaws of death, and hastens home, not to 
appease his own hunger but to feed his children. Is there not something holy, beautiful, 
touching in this — the cunning, thieving, reprobate fox, risking his life and forgetting his appetite, 
to feed those that God has given him? I believe that often, where man views M^th hate, God 
looks down with benignity on his brute creation. May it not be, too, that even in respect to 
human beings, even those who fall under the ban of society or the law, God is often more merciful 
than, the judgments of man? Man would never have selected a thief on the cross to be an 
example of mercy : that was the act of God ! 
The Gray Fox, V. Virginianus, is generally of a gray color, varied with black, the sides and 
neck yellowish red ; the colors, however, diflfer in difi'erent specimens. The head is broader and 
shorter than that of the red fox ; the fur coarser, the legs longer, and the body thicker and of a 
TQaore clumsy aspect. As the red fox prevails at the North, this variety is most common at the 
■South. It is exceedingly voracious, but shy and cowardly. Among the planters of the South, it 
is an object of aversion on account of its inroads upon the poultry. Although generally nocturnal 
in its habits, it goes forth at all hours of the day, if necessity or taste incline. At night, it has a 
hoarse querulous bark, sometimes one fox answering another. When hard pressed in the chase, 
this animal frequently takes refuge in a tree, which it will climb to the height of twenty or thirty 
feet. It feeds on partridges, quails, rabbits, and generally on suich birds and quadrupeds as it can 
capture. It does not usually biuTOW, but makes a kennel, furnished with leaves, in a hollow tree. 
The American Cross Fox, V, decussatus. — The general color of this animal is red above, 
and dark brown below : it is distinguished by a black cross on the neck and shoulders, and 
