When living in Ross-shire I went out one morning in July, before daybreak, to endeavour to shoot a stag, which had been complained of very much by an adjoining farmer, as having done great damage to his crops. Just after it was daylight I saw a large fox coming quietly along the edge of the plantation in which I was concealed; he looked with great care over the turf wall into the field, and seemed to long to get hold of some 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, and having examined the different gaps in the wall by which the hares might be supposed to go in and out, he fixed upon the one that seemed the most frequented, and laid himself down close to it in an attitude like a cat watching a mouse. Cunning as he was, he was too intent on his own hunting to be aware that I was within twenty yards of him with a loaded rifle, and able to watch every movement that he made. I was much amazed to see the fellow so completely outwitted, and kept my rifle ready to shoot him if he found me out and attempted to escape. In the meantime I watched all his plans. He first with great silence and care scraped a small hollow in the ground, throwing up the sand as a kind of screen between his hiding-place and the hares' mews; every now and then, however, he stopped to listen, and sometimes to take a most cautious look into the field; when he had done this he laid himself down in a convenient position for springing upon his prey, and remained perfectly motionless with the exception of an occasional reconnoitre of the feeding hares. When the sun began to rise, they came one by one from the field to the cover of the plantation; three had already come in without passing by his ambush; one of them came within twenty yards of him, but he made no movement beyond crouching still more closely to the ground. Presently two came directly towards him; 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 like a retriever, when my rifle-ball stopped his course by passing through his back-bone, and I went up and despatched him.

Whenever a cat is tempted by the bait, and caught in a fox-trap, Reynard is at hand to devour the bait and the cat too, and fearlessly approaches an instrument which the fox must know cannot then do it any harm. Let us compare with this boldness the incredible caution with which the animal proceeds when tempted by the bait in a set trap. Dietrich aus dem Winkell had once the good fortune of observing, on a winter evening, a fox which for many preceding days had been allured with loop baits, and as often as it ate one it sat comfortably down, wagging its brush. The nearer it approached the trap, the longer did it hesitate to take the baits, and the oftener did it make the tour round the catching-place. When arrived near the trap it squatted down, and eyed the bait for ten minutes at least; whereupon it ran three or four times round the trap, then it stretched out one of its fore-paws after the bait, but did not touch it; again a pause, during which the fox stared immovably at the bait. At last, as if in despair, the animal made a rush and was caught by the neck. (Mag. Nat. Hist., N. S., vol. i., p. 512.)

Some years since, while hunting in Northern Michigan, I tried with the aid of a professional trapper to entrap a fox who made nightly visits to a spot where the entrails of a deer had been thrown. Although we tried every expedient that suggested itself to us we were unsuccessful, and, what seemed very singular, we always found the trap sprung. My companion insisted that the animal dug beneath it, and putting his paw beneath the jaw, pushed down the pan with safety to himself; but though the appearance seemed to confirm it, I could hardly credit his explanation. This year, in another locality of the same region, an old and experienced trapper assured me of its correctness, and said in confirmation that he had several times caught them, after they had made two or three successful attempts to spring the trap, by the simple expedient of setting it upside down, when of course the act of undermining and touching the pan would bring the paw within the grasp of the jaws.

Desiring to obtain some Arctic foxes, Dr. Rae set various kinds of traps; but as the foxes knew these traps from previous experience, he was unsuccessful. Accordingly he set a kind of trap with which the foxes in that part of the country were not acquainted. This consisted of a loaded gun set upon a stand pointing at the bait. A string connected the trigger of the gun with the bait, so that when the fox seized the bait he discharged the gun, and thus committed suicide. In this arrangement the gun was separated from the bait by a distance of about 30 yards, and the string which connected the trigger with the bait was concealed throughout nearly its whole distance in the snow. The gun-trap thus set was successful in killing one fox, but never in killing a second; for the foxes afterwards adopted either of two devices whereby to secure the bait without injuring themselves. One of these devices was to bite through the string at its exposed part near the trigger, and the other device was to burrow up to the bait through the snow at right angles to the line of fire, so that, although in this way they discharged the gun, they escaped with perhaps only a pellet or two in the nose. Now both of these devices exhibited a wonderful degree of what I think must fairly be called power of reasoning. I have carefully interrogated Dr. Rae on all the circumstances of the case, and he tells me that in that part of the world traps are never set with strings; so that there can have been no special association in the foxes' minds between strings and traps. Moreover, after the death of fox No. 1, the track on the snow showed that fox No. 2, notwithstanding the temptation offered by the bait, had expended a great deal of scientific observation on the gun before he undertook to sever the cord. Lastly, with regard to burrowing at right angles to the line of fire, Dr. Rae justly deemed this so extraordinary a circumstance, that he repeated the experiment a number of times, in order to satisfy himself that the direction of the burrowing was really to be attributed to thought, and not to chance.[260]

I may also mention what I have been told, although I have never had an opportunity of seeing it, that wolves watch the fishermen who set lines in deep water for trout, through holes in the ice on Lake Superior, and very soon after the man has left, the wolf goes up to the place, takes hold of the stick which is placed across the hole and attached to the line, trots off with it along the ice until the bait is brought to the surface, then returns and eats the bait and the fish, if any happens to be on the hook. The trout of Lake Superior are very large, and the baits are of a size in proportion.

I once, at the Devil's Glen, Wicklow, found a fox fast in a trap by the foot. We did not like to touch him, but got sticks and poked at the trap till we got it open. The process took ten minutes or a quarter-hour. When first we came up the fox strained to get free, and looked frightfully savage; but we had not poked at the trap more than a very short time before the whole expression of his face changed, he lay perfectly quiet (though we must at times have hurt him); and when at last we had got the trap completely off his foot, he still lay quiet, and looked calmly at us, as if he knew we were friends. In fact, we had some little difficulty in getting him to move away, which he did readily enough when he chose. Was not this a case of reason and good sense overpowering natural instinct?

At dusk, and after nightfall, a pack of jackals, having watched a hare or a small deer take refuge in one of these retreats, immediately surrounded it on all sides; and having stationed a few to watch the path by which the game entered, the leader commences the attack by raising the cry peculiar to their race, and which resembles the sound 'okkay' loudly and rapidly repeated. The whole party then rush into the jungle and drive out the victim, which generally falls into the ambush previously laid to entrap it.

A native gentleman, who had favourable opportunities of observing the movements of these animals, informed me that when a jackal has brought down his game and killed it, his first impulse is to hide it in the nearest jungle, whence he issues with an air of easy indifference to observe whether anything more powerful than himself may be at hand, from which he might encounter the risk of being despoiled of his capture. If the coast be clear he returns to the concealed carcass and carries it away, followed by his companions. But if a man be in sight, or any other animal to be avoided, my informant has seen the jackal seize a cocoa-nut husk in his mouth, or any similar substance, and fly at full speed, as if eager to carry off his pretended prize, returning for the real booty at some more convenient season.[262]

Part of this rocky ground was on the side of a very high hill, which was not accessible for a sportsman, and from which both hares and foxes took their way in the evening to the plain below. There were two channels or gullies made by the rains, leading from these rocks to the lower ground. Near one of these channels, the sportsman in question, and his attendant, stationed themselves one evening in hopes of being able to shoot some hares. They had not been there long, when they observed a fox coming down the gully, and followed by another. After playing together for a little time, one of the foxes concealed himself under a large stone or rock, which was at the bottom of the channel, and the other returned to the rocks. He soon, however, came back, chasing a hare before him. As the hare was passing the stone where the first fox had concealed himself, he tried to seize her by a sudden spring, but missed his aim. The chasing fox then came up, and finding that his expected prey had escaped, through the want of skill in his associate, he fell upon him, and they both fought with so much animosity, that the parties who had been watching their proceedings came up and destroyed them both.

He saw two wolves standing together, and shortly after noticing them was surprised to see one of them lie down in a ditch, and the other walk away over the open plain. He watched the latter, which deliberately went to the far side of a herd of antelopes standing in the plain, and drove them, as a sheep-dog would a flock of sheep, to the very spot where his companion lay in ambush. As the antelopes crossed the ditch, the concealed wolf jumped up as in the former case, seized a doe, and was joined by his colleague.

In response to the appeal which closes Mr. Buck's interesting letter ('Nature,' vol. viii., p. 302), the following instance of 'collective instinct' exhibited by an animal closely allied to the wolf, viz., the Indian jackal, deserves to be recorded. It was communicated to me by a gentleman (since deceased) on whose veracity I can depend. This gentleman was waiting in a tree to shoot tigers as they came to drink at a large lake (I forget the district), skirted by a dense jungle, when about midnight a large axis deer emerged from the latter and went to the water's edge. Then it stopped and sniffed the air in the direction of the jungle, as if suspecting the presence of an enemy; apparently satisfied, however, it began to drink, and continued to do so for a most inordinate length of time. When literally swollen with water it turned to go into the jungle, but was met on its extreme margin by a jackal, which, with a sharp yelp, turned it again into the open. The deer seemed much startled, and ran along the shore for some distance, when it again attempted to enter the jungle, but was again met and driven back in the same manner. The night being calm, my friend could hear this process being repeated time after time—the yelps becoming successively fainter and fainter in the distance, until they became wholly inaudible. The stratagem thus employed was sufficiently evident. The lake having a long narrow shore intervening between it and the jungle, the jackals formed themselves in line along it while concealed within the extreme edge of the cover, and waited until the deer was waterlogged. Their prey, being thus rendered heavy and short-winded, would fall an easy victim if induced to run sufficiently far, i.e., if prevented from entering the jungle. It was, of course, impossible to estimate the number of jackals engaged in this hunt, for it is not impossible that as soon as one had done duty at one place, it outran the deer to await it in another.

A native servant who accompanied my friend told him that this was a stratagem habitually employed by the jackals in that place, and that they hunted in sufficient numbers 'to leave nothing but the bones.' As it is a stratagem which could only be effectual under the peculiar local conditions described, it must appear that this example of collective instinct is due to 'separate expression,' and not to 'inherited habit.'

Cases of collective instinct are not of unfrequent occurrence among dogs. For the accuracy of the two following I can vouch. A small Skye and a large mongrel were in the habit of hunting hares and rabbits upon their own account, the small dog having a good nose, and the larger one great fleetness. These qualities they combined in the most advantageous manner, the terrier driving the cover towards his fleet-footed companion which was waiting for it outside.

The second case is remarkable for a display of sly sagacity. A friend of mine in Ross-shire had a small terrier and a large Newfoundland. One day a shepherd called upon him to say that his dogs had been worrying sheep the night before. The gentleman said there must be some mistake, as the Newfoundland had not been unchained. A few days afterwards the shepherd again called with the same complaint, vehemently asserting that he was positive as to the identity of the dogs. Consequently the owner set one watch upon the kennel and another outside the sheep enclosure, directing them (in consequence of what the shepherd had told him) not to interfere with the action of the dogs. After this had been done several nights in succession, the small dog was observed to come at daydawn to the place where the large one was chained; the latter immediately slipped his collar, and the two animals made straight for the sheep. Upon arriving at the enclosure the Newfoundland concealed himself behind a hedge, while the terrier drove the sheep towards his ambush, and the fate of one of them was quickly sealed. When their breakfast was finished the dogs returned home, and the larger one, thrusting his head into his collar, lay down again as though nothing had happened. Why this animal should have chosen to hunt by stratagem prey which it could easily run down, I cannot suggest; but there can be little doubt that so wise a dog must have had some good reason.

I had at one time two sporting dogs, the one an excellent pointer with a very smooth skin, and of remarkable beauty and intelligence; the other was a spaniel with long and thick hair, but which had not been taught to point, but only coursed in the woods like a harrier. My chÂteau is situated on a level spot of ground, opposite to copse wood filled with hares and rabbits. When sitting at my window, I have observed these two dogs, which were at large in the yard, approach and make signs to each other, and first glancing at me, as if to see if I offered any obstacle to their wishes, step away very gently, then quicken their pace when they were at a little distance from my sight, and finally dart off at full speed when they thought I could neither see them nor order them back. Surprised at this mysterious manoeuvre, I followed them, and witnessed a singular sight. The pointer, who seemed to be the leader of the enterprise, had sent the spaniel out to beat the bushes, and give tongue at the opposite extremity of the bushwood. As to himself, he made with slow steps the circuit of the wood by following it along the border, and I observed him stop before a passage much frequented by rabbits, and there point. I continued at a distance to observe how the intrigue was going to end. At length I heard the spaniel, which had started a hare, drive it with much tongue towards the place where its companion was lying in ambush, and the moment that the hare came out of the passage to gain the fields, the latter darted upon it and brought it to me with an air of triumph. I have seen these two dogs repeat this same manoeuvre more than a hundred times; and this conformity has convinced me that it was not accidental, but the result of a concerted agreement and combined plan of operations understood beforehand.