THE fox is famous for craftiness; and he merits, in some measure, the reputation he has acquired. What the wolf executes by force alone, the fox performs by address, and often with more success. Without combating dogs or shepherds, without attacking the flocks, or disinterring the bodies of the dead, the fox is more certain of procuring his food. He exerts more genius than motion, and all his resources are within himself. Acute as well as circumspect, ingenious, and patiently prudent, he diversifies his conduct, and always reserves some art for unforeseen accidents. Of his own preservation he is extremely vigilant. Though equally indefatigable, and even nimbler than the [214] [PLATE LXXXVII here] [PLATE LXXXVIII here] wolf, he trusts not entirely to the swiftness of his course. The fox knows how to ensure safety, by providing himself with an asylum, where he retires from pressing dangers, where he dwells, and where he brings up his young. He is not a vagabond, but lives in a settled domestic state.
This difference, though it appears even among men, has greater effects, and supposes more powerful causes, among the inferior animals. The single idea of a house, or settled place of abode, indicates a singular attention to self. The choice of situation, the art of making and rendering a house commodious, and of concealing the avenues to it, imply a superior degree of sentiment. The fox is endowed with this quality, and manages it with advantage. He fixes his abode on the border of the wood, in the neighbourhood of cottages: He listens to the crowing of the cocks and the cries of the poultry. He scents them at a distance; he chooses his time with judgment; he conceals his road as well as his design; he slips forward with caution, sometimes even trailing his body, and seldom makes a fruitless expedition. If he can leap the wall, or get in underneath, he ravages the court-yard, puts all to death, and then retires softly with his prey, which he either hides under the herbage, or carries off to his kennel. He returns in a few minutes for another, which he carries off, or conceals in the same manner, but in a different place. In this way he proceeds till the pro- [215] gress of the sun, or some movements perceived in the house, advertise him that it is time to suspend his operations, and to retire to his den. He plays the same game with the catchers of thrushes, wood-cocks, &c. He visits the nets and bird-lime, very early in the morning, carries off successively the birds which are entangled, and lays them in different places, especially hear the sides of high-ways, in the furrows, under the herbage or brushwood, where they sometimes lie two or three days; but he knows perfectly where to find them, when he is in need. He hunts the young hares in the plains, seizes old ones in their seats, never misses those which are wounded, digs out the rabbits in the warrens, discovers the nests of partridges and quails, seizes the mothers on the eggs, and destroys a vast quantity of game. The wolf is not more noxious to the peasant, than the fox to the gentleman.
The chace [sic] of the fox requires less apparatus, and is more amusing, than that of the wolf. To the latter every dog has great reluctance; but all dogs hunt the fox spontaneously and with pleasure; for, though his odour be strong, they often prefer him to the stag or the hare. He may be hunted with terriers, hounds, &c. Whenever he finds himself pursued, he runs to his hole; the terriers with crooked legs, or turnspits, go in with most ease. This mode answers very well when we want to carry off a whole litter of foxes, both mother and [216] young. While the mother defends herself against the terriers, the hunters remove the earth above, and either kill or seize her alive. But, as the holes are often under rocks, the roots of trees, or sunk too deep in the ground, this method is frequently unsuccessful. The most certain and most common method of hunting foxes, is to begin with shutting up their hole, to place a man with a gun near the entrance, and then to search about with the dogs. When they fall in with him, he immediately makes for his hole; but when he comes up to it, he is met with a discharge from the gun. If he escapes the shot, he flies with full speed, takes a large circuit, and returns again to the hole, where he is fired upon a second time; but, finding the entrance shut, he now endeavours to escape by darting straight forward, with the design of never revisiting his former habitation. He is then pursued by the hounds, whom he seldom fails to fatigue, because he purposely passes through the thickest parts of the forest or places of the most difficult access, where the dogs are hardly able to follow him; and, when he takes to the plains, he runs straight out, without stopping or doubling.
But the most effectual mode of destroying foxes, is the laying of snares baited with a pigeon, a live fowl, &c. I once suspended on a tree, at the height of nine feet, some meat, bread, and bones. The boxes had been at severe exercise during the night; for, next morning, the earth [217] all around was beaten, by their jumping, as smooth as a barn-floor. The fox is exceedingly voracious; beside flesh of all kinds, he eats, with equal avidity, eggs, milk, cheese, fruits, and particularly grapes. When the young hares and partridges fail him, he makes war against rats, field-mice, serpents, lizards, tods [sic], &c. Of these he destroys vast numbers; and this is the only service he does to mankind. He is so fond of honey, that he attacks the wild bees, wasps, and hornets. They at first put him to flight by a thousand stings; but he retires only for the purpose of rolling himself on the ground to crush them; and he returns so often to the charge, that he obliges them to abandon the hive, which he soon uncovers, and devours both the honey and wax. In a word, he eats fishes, lobsters, grass-hoppers, &c.
The fox has a great resemblance to the dog, especially in his internal parts. His head, however, is larger in proportion to his body; his ears are also shorter, his tail thicker, his hair longer and more bushy, and his eyes more inclined. He differs still more from the dog by a strong offensive odour which is peculiar to him, and by his natural disposition; for he is not easily, and never fully tamed: He languishes when deprived of liberty, and, if kept too long in a domestic state, he dies of chagrin. He does not copulate with the female dog:* If they have [218] no rooted antipathy, they are at least indifferent to each other. Foxes produce but once a year; and the litter commonly consists of four or five, seldom six, and never less than three. When the female is full, she retires, and seldom goes out of her hole, where she prepares a bed for her young. She comes in season in the winter; and young foxes are found in the month of April. When she perceives that her retreat is discovered, and that her young have been disturbed, she carries them off one by one, and goes in search of another habitation. The young are brought forth blind; like the dogs, they grow 18 months, or two years, and live 13 or 14 years.
The senses of the fox are equally good as those of the wolf; his sentiment is more delicate; and the organs of his voice are more pliant and perfect. The wolf sends forth only frightful howlings; but the fox barks, yelps, and utters a mournful cry like that of the peacock. He varies his tones according to the different sentiments with which he is affected: He has an accent peculiar to the chace, the tone of desire, of complaint, and of sorrow. He has another cry expressive of acute pain, which he utters only when he is shot, or has some of his members broken; for he never complains of any other wound, and, like the wolf, allows himself to be killed with a bludgeon without complaining; but he always defends himself to the last [219] with great courage and bravery. His bite is obstinate and dangerous; and the severest blows will hardly make him quit his hold. His yelping is a species of barking, and consists of a quick succession of similar tones; at the end of which he generally raises his voice similar to the cry of the peacock. In winter, and particularly during frost and snow, he yelps perpetually; but, in summer, he is almost entirely silent, and, during this season, he casts his hair. The skins of young foxes, and of those taken in summer, are of little value. The flesh of the fox is not so bad as that of the wolf: Dogs, and even men, eat it in autumn, especially when he has been fattened with grapes; and his skin in winter makes excellent furs. He sleeps sound, and may be easily approached without wakening: He sleeps in a round form, like the dog; but, when he only reposes himself, he extends his hind legs, and lies on his belly. It is in this situation that he spies the birds along the hedges, who have such an antipathy to him, that they no sooner perceive him, than the send forth soft shrill cries to advertise their neighbours of the enemy’s approach. The jays and black birds, particularly, follow fox from tree to tree, sometimes two or three hundred paces, often repeating the watch-cries.
I brought up some young foxes: Their offensive odour made it necessary to keep them in stables or places which were not much frequented. This, perhaps, might be one reason why [220] they were less tame than the wolf, which was kept nearer the house. At the age of five or six months, the young foxes pursued the ducks and fowls; and, therefore, it became necessary to chain them. I kept two males and a female two years. I tried in vain to make the males copulate with bitches: Though they had never seen females of their own species, and were stimulated by the strongest desires of nature, they uniformly rejected the bitches. But, whenever a she-fox was presented to them, though chained, they instantly covered him, and she brought forth four whelps. The young foxes, who, when at liberty, had darted on the poultry, never attempted to touch a single fowl, after they were chained. A living hen was generally fixes near them for a whole night; and, though victuals were kept from them for many hours; yet, in spite of hunger and of opportunity, they never forgot that they were chained, and disturbed not the hen.
The fox is so extremely subject to the influences of climate, that the varieties of this species are as numerous as those of the domestic animals. Most of our foxes are reddish; but some of them are found of a silver gray: in both, the end of the tail is white. In Burgundy, the latter are called coal foxes; because their feet are remarkably black. Their bodies have also the appearance of being shorter, because they are better clad with hair. There are some [221] who are really longer than the other kinds, and of a dirty gray colour, nearly the same with that of old wolves. But it is uncertain whether this difference constitutes a real variety, or is produced by the age of the animal, who, perhaps, grows whiter as he advances in years. In the northern regions, the foxes are of all colours, black, blue, gray, iron-coloured, silver gray, white, white with yellow feet, white with black heads, white with the extremity of the tail black, reddish with the throat and belly entirely white; and, lastly, some of them have a black line along the spine, crossed with another black line over the shoulder. The latter are larger than the other kinds, and have black throats. The common species are more generally diffused than any of the others. We find them in every part of Europe,* in the northern and temperate regions of Asia,+ and in America;3 but they are very rare in Africa, and in the countries bordering on the Equator. Travellers who pretend to have seen them in Calicut,4 and other southern provinces of India, have mistaken the jackal for the fox. Aristotle himself falls into a similar error, when he tells us,5 that the foxes of Egypt are smaller than those of Greece; for what he calls [222] the small foxes of Egypt are polecats,* whose odour is intollerable [sic]. Our foxes, who belong originally to cold climates, have spread over all the temperate regions, but have never penetrated farther south than Spain and Japan.+ What demonstrates them to be natives of cold countries, is that all the varieties of the species are to be found in the high latitudes, and no where else: Besides, they support with ease the most extreme cold, and live in the neighbourhood of both poles.3 The fur of the white foxes is not much valued, because the hairs fall easily off; the silver gray is better; and the blue and cross kinds are in great request, on account of their rarity; but the black is the most precious; next to that of the sable, it is the best and dearest fur. We find foxes in Sptizbergen,4 in Greenland,5 in Lapland, and in Canada.6 In the latter [223] country there are likewise crossed foxes; the common species is not so red as in Europe; and the hair is longer and more bushy.
Travellers inform us, that the foxes of Greenland resemble dogs in the form of the head and feet, and likewise in their barking; that some of them are white, but the greatest number gray or blue; that they seldom change their colour, and, when the hair of the blue kind begins to fall off, it grows pale, and the fur is no longer valuable; that they live upon eggs and birds, and, when they are unsuccessful in finding this species of food, they content themselves with flies, bees, crabs, and what they can procure by fishing; and that they dwell in the clefts of rocks.*
At Kamtschatka, the hair of the fox is very bushy, and so glossy and beautiful, that it excels the finest Siberian furs. The most valuable are the black chesnuts [sic], those with black bellies and red bodies, and those of an iron colour.+
In Norway there are white, bay, and black foxes, and others which have two black lines on the reins. The latter kind, and those which are wholly black, are most esteemed. These furs are a considerable article of commerce: From the [224] [PLATE LXVI {sic} here] [PLATE LXXXIX here] [PLATE XC here] [PLATE XCI here] [PLATE XCII here] [PLATE XCIII here] port of Bergen alone, more than 4000 foxes skins are annually exported. Pontoppidan, who often indulges in the marvellous [sic], tells us, that a fox had ranked several heads of fishes into rows, at some distance from a fisher’s hut; that the people could not imagine what might be his intention, but that, a little afterwards, a crow, which lighted to feed upon the heads, fell a sacrifice to his cunning device. He adds, that these animals make use of their tail in catching lobsters, &c.* [225]
* “Dog with a sharp nose, lively hazel eyes, sharp erect ears, body tawney red, mixed with ash-colour; fore part of the legs black; tail long, strait, bushy, tipt with white; subject to much varieties in colour;” Pennant’s Synops. of quad. p. 152.
In Greek, [a word in Greek letters I can’t replicate]; in Latin, Vulpes; in Italian, Volpe; in Spanish, Raposa; in German, Fuchss; in Swedish, Raef; in Polish, Liszka; in French, Le Renard.
Vulpes; Gesner. Icon. anim. quad. p. 88.
Vulpes; Raii Synops. quad. p. 177.
Canis vulpes, cauda erecta, apice nigro; Lyn. Syst. Nat. p. 59.
Vulpes vulgaris; Klein. quad. p. 71.
Canis sulvis, pileis cinereis intermixtis; Brisson, regn. anim. p. 239 [back to page 214].
* See my experiments on this subject, article Dog [back to page 218].
* See les Oeuvres de Renard, tom. 1. p. 175.
+ Voyage d’Olearius, tom. 1. p. 368.
3. Voyage de la Hontan, tom. 2. p. 42.
4. Voyage de Pyrard, tom .1. p. 427.
5. Arist. Hist. animal. lib. 8. cap. 18 [back to page 222].
* Aldrovand. Quadrup. Hist. p. 197.
+ L’hist. du Japon, par Koempfer, tom 1. p. 110
3. Narborough’s voyage to the South Seas; Coreal, tom. 2. p. 184; Recueil des voyages du Nord, tom. 2. p. 113.; Recueil des voyages qui ont servi à l;’establissement de la Comp. des Indes Orient. tom. 1. p. 39.
4. Id. ibid.
5. Foxes abound over all Lapland. They are generally white, though some of them are of the common colour. The white furs are less esteemed; but the black, which are more rare, are sometimes sold for 40 or 50 French crowns; the hair is so fine and so long, that it hangs on any side you please; Oeuvres de Renard, tom. 1. p. 175.
6. Voyages du pays des Hurons, par Sagard Theodat, p. 304 [back to page 223].
* Hist. gen. des Voyages, tom. 19. p. 38.
+ Id. ibid. p. 252 [back to page 224].
* Pontoppidan’s Nat. Hist. of Norway [back to page 225].