'In the cases seen by myself, and by a friend of greater experience, the trench was always scraped at right angles, or nearly so, to the line of fire of the gun. This at first sight may appear erroneous, but on reflection it really is not so, for if the trench is to be a shelter one—thinking, as the fox must have done, that the gun or something coming from it was the danger to be protected from or guarded against—it must be made across the line of fire, for if scratched in the direction of fire it would afford little or no protection or concealment, and the reasoning power or intelligence of the fox would be at fault.
'My belief is that one of these knowing foxes had seen his or her companion shot, or found it dead shortly after it had been killed, and not unnaturally attributed the cause of the mishap to the only strange thing it saw near, namely, the gun.
'It was evident that in all cases they had studied the situation carefully, as was sufficiently shown by their tracks in the snow, which indicated their extremely cautious approach when either the string-cutting or trench-making dodge was resorted to, in attempting to obtain the coveted bait without injury to themselves.'
[261] It will be remembered that, from evidence previously detailed, both the wolverine or glutton and certain deer have been shown capable of similarly obviating the danger of gun-traps.
[262] Nat. Hist. of Ceylon, p. 35.
[263] Descent of Man, p. 74.
[264] So many cases are on record of large dogs (especially of the Newfoundland breed) throwing troublesome curs into the water, and again rescuing them if they show danger of drowning, that we can scarcely fail to accept them as true. Such cases exhibit a wonderful play of human-like emotions.
[265] Descent of Man, p. 71.
[266] For many other instances of sheep-dog sagacity, see Watson, Reasoning Power of Animals, under 'Shepherd's Dog.'
[267] Naturalist's Library, vol. x., p. 154 (quoted by Watson).