THE FOX. ok

artfulness which is apparently unique. The extraordinary
way in which he will feign himself dead, whether when
hunting or being hunted, is a proof of this, as are also the
various tricks he will resort to, to throw his pursuers off the
scent. Captain Brown tells a story of a fox who leapt a
high wall and crouched under it on the further side until
the hounds had passed over, and then quietly returned, giving
them the slip. Another fox who suddenly baffled two blood
hounds who were in hot pursuit, was discovered lying full
length upon a log of wood from which at first it was difficult
to distinguish him. When feigning death he is said some-
times to hold his breath and hang out his tongue. He will
sometimes baffle his pursuers by hanging on to a branch of
a tree.
The Foxess Mr. St. John tells the following story of the
Hunter. fox as a hunter:—‘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
ato 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 ofa 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 reconnoitre
ef the feeding hares. When the sun began to rise, they
came, one by one, from the field to the plantation: three