File:The fox (1906) (14781832714).jpg

Identifier: foxdale00dale (find matches)
Title: The fox
Year: 1906 (1900s)
Authors: Dale, T. F. (Thomas Francis), 1858-1923
Subjects: Foxes Hunting
Publisher: London New York Bombay : Longmans, Green, and Co.
Contributing Library: Webster Family Library of Veterinary Medicine
Digitizing Sponsor: Tufts University

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y helps them. It is clear that if, as Ithink, the fox has its memory developed as being anadvantage to the race in the struggle for existence,it will have developed in the most practically usefuldirections. Thus the old fox, coming back and find-ing his earth stopped, does possibly recollect that thelast time this happened he was hunted, and at oncedeparts for the day ; but I do not think that he hasany painful looking forward to the terrors of beinghunted, such as we should have. The law of self-preservation prompts him to go away for his ownbenefit and that of the race, and he goes. But notalways. If foxes do take a hint of coming trouble,they are the wisest, oldest, and most experienced.The average fox is but a wild beast. Foxes have thedesire of the carnivorous animal for sleep after food;and trotting off, excluded from his earth the fox willcurl himself up in a convenient place near at hand. The fox sleeps lightly, probably owing to thefact that he has been hunted since the world
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WARNING ECHOES THE MIND OF THE FOX 61 began. The soundest sleepers among foxes aresoon cut off, as all huntsmen know. I havemore than once watched a startled fox, everysense on the alert, the keen nose slightly raised,the ears forward, one slender paw uplifted. Nowthere are three courses open to him : to fly, tostay, to creep underground. But, again, the foxdoes not dwell on the horrors of the present, asa sensitive man or timid woman might do. Duringthe flight he has the refuge he is seeking in hismind, and the best way there, which he takes,as we have seen, by the aid of a very minutememory of the objects on the way. He regulateshis pace partly by the sound of the pack, partly bythe knowledge he has of the state of the scent. Atfirst he has, I think, no terrors : his main object is toreach a place where he can avoid disturbance. It isnot absolutely certain that, so long as his powers arein full activity, he realises the fact that he is beingpursued, or the intentions of his pursuers

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