Every other nation, even from historic antiquity, has reckoned the Fox as among the ordinary feræ naturæ, to be killed, when met with, for the sake only of his skin, for his flesh is not toothsome: and when he arrives at the dignity of a silver or a black fox, his fur enwraps royal personages, as being of extreme value.
The Fox is noted everywhere for its “craftiness,” and was so famed long before the epic of Reineke Fuchs was evolved, and, indeed, this may be said to be its principal attribute. Many are the stories told by country firesides of his stratagems, both in plundering and in his endeavours to escape from his enemies. Indeed, no country ought to be able to compare in Fox lore with our own. Its sagacity, cunning, or call it what you like, dates far back. Pliny tells us that “in Thrace, when all parts are covered with ice, the foxes are consulted, an animal, which, in other respects, is baneful from its
Craftiness. It has been observed, that this animal applies its ear to the ice, for the purpose of testing its thickness; hence it is, that the inhabitants will never cross frozen rivers and lakes, until the foxes have passed over them and returned.”
The Fox is most abundant in the northern parts of Europe, and therefore we hear more about him from the pages of Olaus Magnus, Gessner, and Topsell.
The former says:—“When the fox is pressed with hunger, Cold and Snow, and he comes near men’s houses, he will bark like a dog, that house creatures may come nearer to him with more confidence. Also, he will faign himself dead, and lie on his back, drawing in his breath, and lolling out his tongue. The birds coming down, unawares, to feed on the carkasse, are snapt up by him, with open mouth. Moreover, when he is hungry, and finds nothing to eat, he rolls himself in red earth, that he may appear bloody; and, casting himself on the earth, he holds his breath, and when the birds see that
he breaths not, and that his tongue hangs forth of his mouth, they think he is dead; but so soon as they descend, he draws them to him and devours them.
“Again, when he sees that he cannot conquer the Urchin, for his prickles, he lays him on his back, and so rends the soft part of his body. Sometimes fearing the multitude of wasps, he counterfeits and hides himself, his tail hanging out: and when he sees that they are all busie, and entangled in his thick tail, he comes forth, and rubs them against a stone or Tree, and kills them and eats them. The same trick, almost, he useth, when he lyes in wait for crabs and small fish, running about the bank, and he lets down his tail into the water, they admire at it, and run to it, and are taken in his fur, and pull’d out. Moreover, when he hath fleas, he makes a little bundle of soft hay wrapt in hair, and holds it in his mouth; then he goes by degrees into the water, beginning with his tail, that the fleas fearing the water, will run up all his body till they come at his head: then he dips in his head, that they may leap into the hay; when this is done, he leaves the hay in the water, and swims forth.
“But when he is hungry, he will counterfeit to play with the Hare, which he presently catcheth and devoureth, unlesse the Hare escape by flight, as he often doth. Sometimes he also escapes from the dogs by barking, faigning himself to be a dog, but more surely when he hangs by a bough, and makes the dogs hunt in vain to find his footing. He is also wont to deceive the Hunter and his dogs, when he runs among a herd of Goats, and goes for one of them, leaping upon the Goat’s back, that he may sooner escape by the running of the Goat, by reason of the hatefull Rider on his back. The
other Goats follow, which the Hunter fearing to molest, calls off his Dogs that many be not killed.