is 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."

[Illustration: THE FOX AND THE HARES.--Page 176.]

"In the meantime I watched all his plans; he then with great care and
silence scraped a small hol