AND AMERICAN RURAL SPORTS. 
25 
RED FOX. 
CANIS (VULPES) FULVUS. 
Renard de Virginie. Palisot de Beaxjvois. Bui. soc. 
Phil. — Large Red Fox of the Plains. Lewis & 
Clark. — Red Fox. Sabine. App. to Franklin’s Jour- 
ney, 656. Godman, vol. i. 276. — American Fox. 
Richardson, Faun. am. hor. 91. — Canis fulvus, 
Desm. Mamm. 203. Icon F. Cuv. Mam. Lit hog . — 
J. Doughty’s Collection. 
The various species of the Fox have been classed by 
most naturalists in the genus Canis Lin. together with the 
wolf and jackal. From these animals, however, they differ 
in many important particulars. In the dogs, the pupil of the 
eye is circular and diurnal; whilst in the Fox, it is linear 
and nocturnal. The tail is also more bushy, the nose more 
pointed, and the scent stronger than in the former. There 
is likewise a very marked dissimilarity in many of their 
habits and manners; thus the Fox burrows, which the dog 
does not, the voice of the former is rather a yelp than a 
bark, &c. From these considerations, some naturalists 
have wholly separated them from Canis under the title of 
Vulpes , and others, though retaining them in that genus, 
make them a subdivision or subgenus. 
The Fox belongs to the Digitigrada, or second tribe of 
the Carnivora , including such animals as support them- 
selves in walking, on the extremities of the toes. The 
digitigrade animals are subdivided, 1st. into such as have 
one tubercular or bruising grinder in the upper jaw; are 
destitute of a coecum, and whose body is very little larger 
than their head. This subdivision includes the genus 
Mustela of Linne, which has been split into several well 
marked genera; by more modern naturalists, as Mustela, L. 
Putorius, Cuv. Mephitis, Cuv. Lutra, Storr. 2d. Such 
as have two flat tubercular teeth in the upper jaw, and are 
furnished with a small coecum; these are, Canis, Lin. 
Vulpes, Gesner. Viverra, Cuv. Genetta, Cuv. Paradox- 
urus, Cuv. Herpestes, Ulig. Suricata, Desm. CroSsar- 
chus, F. Cuv. 3d. Those which have no tubercular tooth in 
the lower jaw, which includes Felis, Lin. Hyaena, Storr. 
Most of the species of the F ox have the same cunning and 
sagacity, the same eagerness after prey, and commit the 
same ravages among game, birds, poultry, and the lesser 
quadrupeds. They are exceedingly fond of honey, and 
will attack hives and the nests of the wild bee, for the 
sake of the spoil; in these exploits they frequently meet 
with so rough a reception, as to force them to retire, that 
they may roll on the ground and thus crush their nume- 
rous and vindictive assailants; but the moment they have 
effected this, they return to the charge and are generally 
G 
successful. Foxes will also eat any sort of insect, fruit, 
&c. and are very destructive in vineyards. This latter 
propensity was observed at a very early period. “ Take 
us the Foxes, the little Foxes that spoil the vines, for our 
vines have tender grapes.”* 
But they do not limit themselves to the quantity of food 
necessary to appease the cravings of their appetite at the 
moment. Instinct appears to warn them, that although 
they may then be revelling in plenty, that future wants 
must also be provided against. Hence, when they invade 
a poultry yard, they kill all they can, and successively 
carry off every piece, concealing them in the neighbour- 
hood for a supply in time of need. Captain Lyon, in 
speaking of this trait of character in the arctic Fox, ob- 
serves, “ Their first impulse on receiving food, is to hide 
it as soon as possible, even though suffering from hunger, 
and having no companion of whose honesty they are doubt- 
ful. In this case snow is of great assistance, as being 
easily piled over their stores, and then forcibly pressed 
down by the nose. I frequently observed my dog-fox, 
when no snow was attainable, gather his chain into his 
mouth, and in that manner carefully coil it so as to hide 
the meat. On moving away, satisfied with his operations, 
he of course, had drawn it after him again, and sometimes 
with great patience repeated his labors four or five times, 
until in a passion, he has been constrained to eat his food, 
without its having been rendered luscious by previous con- 
cealment.”! 
Foxes are very fond of basking in the sun; in fact their 
general time of rest is in the day time, during which pe- 
riod they appear listless and inactive, without they are 
excited by fear or some other stimulus. They sleep in a 
round form like the dog, and also resemble that animal in 
the ease with which they are awakened, it being almost 
impossible to come on them unawares, for even when they 
are in an apparently sound sleep, the slightest noise, made 
near them, will arouse them. The moment night sets in, 
all their faculties are awakened; they then begin their 
gambols and depredations, continuing in rapid and almost 
unceasing motion till day break. Most, if not all, the spe- 
cies live in burrows; these are generally composed of 
several chambers, and are provided with more than one 
entrance, by which they may make their escape in cases of 
extremity. One of the great characteristics of the Fox, is 
their extreme prudence and almost matchless cunning, 
which are exemplified not only in their stratagems to ob- 
tain prey, but also in their numerous wiles in order to 
avoid their pursuers. Dr. Richardson states, that the 
arctic Fox appears to have the power of decoying other 
* Solomon's Song, ii. 15. t Lyon's Private Journal. 
