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Stealing along in the dark of evening, the cunning and rapacious Fox (Canis Vulpes) leaves his hole in the earth, and roams in search of his prey. The poultry-yards, rabbit-warrens, and the haunts of game, tell of his skilful depredations; but he is not at all difficult in his appetite. To be sure, when he can get ripe grapes, he has a feast. If young turkeys and hares are not to be had, he puts up with a young fawn, a wild duck, or even weasels, mice, frogs, or insects. He will also walk down to the sea-shore, and sup upon the remains of fishes, or arrest the crabs and make them alter their sidelong course so as to crawl down his throat. Reynard also has an eye to the future; for he never lets anything escape which comes within his sharp bite, and as there must be a limit to the quantity which any animal can contain, when he cannot possibly eat any more, he, in various spots, well marked by himself, buries the remainder for the morrow's meal. With only his toes touching the earth, he prowls about with noiseless steps; his nose and ears alive to the faintest sound or odour; his cat-like eyes, with linear pupil, gleaming like coals of fire, and he suddenly springs upon his victims before they are aware of his vicinity. His bushy tail is the envied trophy of the huntsman, who calls it a brush. His colours are white, black, red, yellow, bluish, or variegated; and in cold climates he always turns white in winter. The father takes no care of his children; but the mother performs her duty with the most exemplary devotion for four months.

The fox is generally a solitary, suspicious animal; even when as much tamed as he can be, he seems to think he is going to be deceived and ill-treated: perhaps he judges of others by himself. He lives very often in a burrow, called an earth, belonging to somebody else, for he has very lax morals concerning property, and a great idea that right is established by possession. If he should be caught and put in confinement, he is very ferocious, or dies of ennui; but he is much too coy and clever to be easily entrapped. His cry is a sort of yelp, which, however, he is much too cautious to utter when he is earning his living.

Occasionally the fox has been caught in a trap, and there is the history of one who escaped and left one of his fore feet behind him. After a lapse of time, his trail was to be seen in various places, and was, of course, easily recognized. This continued for two years, when he was chased by Mr. St. John and easily killed. Another who was unearthed by the dogs, instead of running after the usual fashion of these beasts, turned suddenly upon each dog that came up and jumped over him. This could not last long, although it puzzled the dogs very much; he was taken, and then only was the reason for his manoeuvre discovered by finding that he had only three feet.

Mr. St. John relates the following history of the cunning of a fox:—"Just after it was daylight, I saw a large fox come very quietly along the edge of the plantation; he looked with great care over the turf wall into the field, and seemed to long very much to get hold of some of the hares that were feeding in it, but apparently knew that he had no chance of catching one by dint of running. After considering a short time, he seemed to have formed his plans, examined the different gaps in the wall, fixed upon one which appeared to be most frequented, and laid himself down close to it, in an attitude like that of a cat at a mouse hole."

"In the meantime I watched all his plans; he then with great care and silence scraped a small hollow in the ground, throwing up the sand as a kind of screen; every now and then, however, he stopped to listen, and sometimes to take a most cautious peep into the field. When he had done this he laid himself down in a convenient posture for springing on his prey, and remained perfectly motionless, with the exception of an occasional reconnoiter of the feeding hares. When the sun began to rise, they came, one by one, from the field to the plantation; three had already come without passing by his ambush, one within twenty yards of him, but he made no movement beyond crouching still more flatly to the ground. Presently two came directly towards him, and though he did not venture to look up, I saw, by an involuntary motion of his ears, that those quick organs had already warned him of their approach. The two hares came through the gap together, and the fox, springing with the quickness of lightning, caught one and killed her immediately; he then lifted up his booty, and was carrying it off, when my rifle-ball stopped his course."

In Captain Brown's "Popular Natural History," I find the following:—"In the autumn of the year 1819, at a fox-chase in Galloway, a very strong fox was hard run by the hounds. Finding himself in great danger of being taken, Reynard made for a high wall at a short distance, and springing over it, crept close under the other side: the hounds followed, but no sooner had they leaped the wall, than he sprang back again over it, and by this cunning device gave them the slip, and got safe away from his pursuers."

An American gentleman of Pittsfield, accompanied by two blood-hounds, found a fox, and pursued him for nearly two hours, when suddenly the dogs appeared at fault. Their master came up with them near a large log of wood lying on the ground, and felt much surprise at their making a circuit of a few roods without any object in view, every trace of the fox seeming to have been lost, while the dogs still kept yelping. On looking about him the gentleman saw the fox stretched upon the log, apparently lifeless. He made several unsuccessful efforts to direct the attention of the dogs towards the place, and at length he approached so near as to see the animal breathe. Even then Reynard did not show any alarm; but his pursuer aimed a blow at him with the branch of a tree, upon which he leaped from his lurking-place, and was taken.

One of the drollest incidents in fox-hunting was that at Newry, in Ireland, when, being pursued very hotly, the fox leaped on to the top of a turf-stack, where he laid himself down quite flat. At last, one of the hounds perceived him, and he was obliged again to run. After this, he climbed up a stone wall, whence he sprang on to the roof of a cabin near by, and mounting to the chimney top, from thence inspected his enemies. An old hound, however, followed him, and was on the point of seizing him, when Reynard dropped down the chimney into the lap of an old woman, who was smoking her pipe at the corner. The hound did not dare to follow, but the sportsmen came up, and entering the cabin, found it in possession of the fox; the frightened woman and children huddled into one corner, and the fox (who was taken alive) grinning at them.

In all ages of fable, the fox has been the principal hero. The most ancient fables on record, those of Lokman, the Arabian, from whom Æsop took most of his, gives him a very conspicuous place among the crafty courtiers of the lion. The chief phrase of which the wily flatterer makes use, as he bows with affected humility to his sovereign, is, "Oh, Father of Beauty," by which indirect compliment he generally gains his wishes. The early German writers have also chosen him as the principal hero of various histories, and the poem of "Reynard, the Fox," will live as long as printers and illustrators exercise their art and talent.

The Arctic fox is smaller than ours; even the soles of his feet are covered with fur, like those of the hare, and he is altogether more thickly clothed. He has often been supposed to be pied in colour, but this is only in process of turning to the hue of winter. He is in these climates a much more gregarious animal, and several families live in the same earth. Bishop Heber mentions one in India, which feeds chiefly on field-mice and white ants, and this probably is the species of which the natives say, that he can turn nine times within the space of his own length. He is about half the size of the European.

Much valuable fur is derived both from European and American foxes, where there is a great variety of colour, not depending on temperature.

In Ireland there is a small animal called a fox, which does not eat flesh, but contents itself with vegetables, and is so perfectly harmless, that it roams about, unmolested even by dogs.