Animal Intelligence / The International Scientific Series, Vol. XLIV.

by George John Romanes

The intelligence of the fox is proverbial; but as I have not received many original observations on this head, I shall merely refer to some of the best authenticated observations already published, and shall begin with the instance narrated by Mr. St. John in his 'Wild Sports of the Highlands':—

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.

Numberless instances are on record showing the remarkable cunning of foxes in procuring bait from traps without allowing themselves to be caught. These cases are so numerous, and all display so much the same quality of intelligence, that it is impossible to doubt so great a concurrence of testimony. I shall only give two or three specific cases, to show the kind of intelligence that is in question. It will be observed that it is much the same as that which is displayed under similar circumstances by rats and wolverines, in which animals we have already considered it. In all these cases the intelligence displayed must justly be deemed to be of a very remarkable order. For, inasmuch as traps are not things to be met with in nature, hereditary experience cannot be supposed to have played any part in the formation of special instincts to avoid the dangers arising from traps, and therefore the astonishing devices by which these dangers are avoided can only be attributed to observation, coupled with intelligent investigation of a remarkably high character.

I extract the following from Couch's 'Illustrations of Instinct' (p. 175):—

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.)

In 'Nature,' vol. xxi., p. 132, Mr. Crehore, writing from Boston, says:—

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.

In connection with traps, my friend Dr. Rae has communicated to me a highly remarkable instance of the display of reason on the part of the Arctic foxes. I have previously published the facts in my lecture before the British Association in 1879, and therefore shall here quote them from it:—

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]