THROUGH SWEDEN'. 
*79 
equipage, or whatever or whomfoevcr they confidered as objects of 
juft fufpicion and danger, without moving farther off, even though 
a man fhould come within thirty or forty paces of them. It the 
fledge flopped, then they would immediately betake themfelves 
to flight; but if any one whiffled, the fox would flop fliort, turn 
about, and for a few feconds look the perfon in the face. A fportf- 
man, having a fowling piece with him in his fledge, would have 
an opportunity of taking a tolerably fure aim, and doing great 
execution among them merely by means of whiffling. We were 
not without fowling pieces; but our pelices, a certain lazinefs 
and heavinefs with which we were overwhelmed (the effedl, no 
doubt, of the climate), and the conflraint we were under from 
the neceffity of accommodating our poflure to the movement of 
the fledge, all confpired to make fhooting at a mark no eafy mat¬ 
ter. Befides the report of our pieces might have frightened the 
horfes. 
It is alleged by fome, that the foxes of the North are of a dif¬ 
ferent fpecies from thofe of England, and that thofe of the latter 
are larger, more cunning, and wilder than thofe of the former. 
Without pretending to decide this queflion, I fhall only obferve, 
that the prudence of northern animals is often overcome by ex¬ 
treme hunger, and that the cold in Great Britain is never fo long 
nor fo intenfe as to reduce them to fuch extremity. As to 
their flopping fhort in the midfl of their flight, on hearing a 
whiffle, I could never learn or conjedlure what fenfation or idea 
this could excite in them. Being to them an unufual found, they 
A a 2 
no 
