The Animal World, A Book of Natural History Part 11

FOXES

The best-known of the foxes, of course, is the common fox of Great Britain and Western Europe, which is also found in many other parts of the world.

This animal is famous for its cunning, and certainly, in many ways, it is very clever. It has all sorts of tricks, for example, to throw the hounds off its track when it is being hunted. It seems to know perfectly well that it is followed by scent, and sometimes it will suddenly leap to one side so as to break the trail, and then make off in quite a different direction. Sometimes, when it has a sufficient start, it will return on its track for sixty or seventy yards, and then leap aside. Or it will roll in carrion in order to disguise its own peculiar odor. A hunter tells us that he once found a fox's burrow which was very cleverly made. The entrance to it was about twenty feet from the edge of a sand-pit, in the middle of a thick clump of bushes, and there was a "bolt-hole" about half way down the side of the pit. So when the fox was chased he could run into his burrow by the upper entrance, slip out by the lower one, and so make his escape through the pit while the hounds were all gathered round the hole up above.

Very often a fox will climb a tree, sometimes to a great height, and hide among the branches, and we have heard of a fox which baffled the hounds over and over again in a most ingenious way. He used to run to a certain fence, spring to the top, and then walk along for several hundred yards before leaping down again to the ground. By doing this, of course, he broke the scent most thoroughly, and long before the hounds could find it again he had reached a place of safety.

But although the fox is generally so clever he sometimes does the most stupid things possible. Charles Waterton tells us of a fox which visited a poultry-yard and carried off eight young turkeys. He could not eat them all, of course, so he buried five in the ground, meaning no doubt, to come and fetch them away on the following evening. But apparently he thought that if he buried them entirely he might not be able to find them again. So he carefully left one wing of each bird sticking up above the surface to serve as a guide, and never seemed to reflect that others would be able to see it as well as himself! So the farmer recovered his turkeys, and when Reynard came to look for his supper next night he found that it had disappeared.

The burrow of a fox is sometimes an old rabbit-hole enlarged to a suitable size. But generally the animal sc.r.a.pes out a burrow for himself, frequently choosing the roots of a large tree as a situation, or a very rocky piece of ground from which it will be very difficult to dig him out. In this burrow four or five little ones are brought up.

They are odd-looking creatures, with very snub noses, and if you did not know what they were you would never take them for young foxes.

THE ARCTIC FOX

This animal, more interesting still, perhaps, lives in the ice-bound regions of the far north. There are often several of these to be seen in a zoo, and the first thing that one notices on seeing them is that no two of them are alike. One, perhaps, is reddish brown above and yellowish white beneath. Another is gray all over. A third, very likely, is mottled; while a fourth may be of that curious bluish color which we see in Russian cats.

In fact, in the snowy polar regions a great many of these foxes turn perfectly white in winter. This enables them to creep over the snow without being seen by their victims. Then, when warmer weather comes, and the snow begins to melt, their fur pa.s.ses back again to its original color.

During the spring and summer the arctic fox feeds on sea-birds and their eggs, and it is said to attract the birds to the place where it is lying in wait by imitating their peculiar cries. But we do not think that that is true. What it feeds upon during the rest of the year is rather doubtful. It cannot catch birds, for they have all flown away farther south. It cannot catch fishes, for the water is covered in by ice several feet in thickness. Most likely it catches numbers of those odd little animals known as lemmings just as winter begins, and stores them away in a kind of larder, where the cold prevents their bodies from decaying.

The arctic fox is a good deal smaller than the common fox, and has ears so short and rounded that they look just as if they had been cropped.

In order to allow it to travel over the slippery ice, the arctic fox has the soles of its feet covered with long stiff hairs, which give it a perfectly firm foothold on the frozen surface.

The arctic fox is not nearly such a clever animal as the common fox, and is very easily trapped. If a hunter follows one, it will certainly run into its hole; but a moment or two later it is almost sure to poke out its head in order to yelp at him, so that he is easily able to shoot it.

The consequence is that these animals are destroyed in very great numbers for the sake of their skins, those with bluish fur being especially valuable.

First-cla.s.s skins of these foxes are, in truth, among the most costly of furs. In view of this, men interested in the fur-trade in Alaska have endeavored to raise them in captivity, so as to obtain a constant supply of their pelts. This experiment has succeeded best on a certain island in Bering Sea, where a large colony of arctic foxes is kept, guarded and tended by Eskimos, who feed them, and who once a year catch and kill a certain number when their fur is in its best condition.

AMERICAN FOXES

Besides the arctic fox, which of course is found in American as well as other arctic regions, this country has many species of fox that belong peculiarly to itself. William T. Hornaday, director of the New York Zoological Park, who has written many instructive things about animals, tells us in his "American Natural History" that north of Mexico this continent has sixteen distinct species of foxes, some of which have several subspecies.

The American fox most widely found is that which Mr. Hornaday calls "our wise old friend, the red fox," which is so well known in many parts of the country. It is a very cunning creature, "so well able to take care of itself that it refuses to be exterminated." Still we are told that it was not hard for the early settlers in this country to outwit the red foxes, and to shoot them and trap them when they came into the clearings where the settlers made their homes. It is easier to get the better of these animals in a wild region than where many people live, for the foxes are sharp observers and appear to learn many things from seeing what their human neighbors do. Naturalists tell us that in this way the American foxes have come to be almost as intelligent as those of the Old World. The red fox, we are told, "now holds his own against man, as much by boldness and audacity as by caution; few of our wild animals look on man with so little awe."

You must have read many stories ill.u.s.trating this boldness of the fox, often shown in robbing hen-roosts and even catching chickens in the yards or the fields. And quite as remarkable are the accounts of foxes'

cunning in avoiding hunters and hounds. In fact, they have often been known to follow the very hunter who was looking for them, as though they wanted to learn all his ways so as to be better able to baffle him.

The gray fox, which is somewhat smaller than the red fox, belongs especially to the southern part of the country, "but it ranges northward far into the home of the red fox." It is very wild, and can move swiftly. Sometimes, to escape from dogs, it will climb a small tree and get far above the pursuer's reach. It is at its best only in the forest, and cannot hold its own as the red fox does, in a country much inhabited by men. With all his slyness the gray fox "lacks that astonishing shrewdness and faculty for working out deep-laid schemes which enables the red fox to turn the tables on the hunter."

All the different varieties of American fox are more or less closely related to the one or the other of these two--the red fox and the gray fox--so that naturalists cla.s.s them in two groups, the red fox group and the gray fox group. If you learn all that you can about them you will find that you have obtained a great deal of interesting knowledge.

THE FENNEC

This is a very pretty fox-like little animal found in Nubia and Egypt.

It is only about twenty inches long, including its big bushy tail, and its fur is sometimes pale fawn color, and sometimes creamy white. But what strikes one most about it is the extraordinary size of its ears, which are always carried perfectly upright, and look as if they were intended for an animal at least five times as big as itself.

The fennec is a creature of the desert, and lives in burrows which it scoops out in the sand. In order to make these burrows more comfortable, it lines them with leaves, hair, and the feathers of birds, while they are nearly always situated beneath the roots of plants, where the sand is softer and more easy to work. The animal digs with the most wonderful speed, and those who have surprised it while at a distance from its burrow say that it disappears in the sand just as though it were sinking into water, and is lost to sight in a few seconds.

The fennec spends the heat of the day comfortably curled up in its burrow, with its nose tucked away under its big bushy tail. When the sun sets it wakes up and goes off to the nearest water to drink, after which it hunts for jerboas, birds, lizards, insects, and the various other small creatures upon which it feeds.

THE HUNTING-DOG

Although a member of the great dog tribe, this animal is not really a dog. It looks very much like a spotted hyena, and yet it is not really a hyena. Sometimes it is known as the hyena-dog, and perhaps that is the best name which can be given to it.

These animals are found throughout Southern Africa, and are especially numerous in Cape Colony. They hunt in packs of from ten to fifty or sixty, which run with such wonderful speed that even the swiftest antelopes cannot escape them. When they catch up with their quarry they all spring upon it together, snapping at it over and over again until they bring it to the ground. And in a few minutes there is nothing left of its carca.s.s but just a few of the larger bones.

In size the hyena-dog is about as big as a wolf. In color it varies a good deal, but the head is always black, with a white mark round the eyes, while the body is more or less mottled with black, white, and yellow. The long bushy tail is yellow at the root, black in the middle, and white at the tip.

CHAPTER X

THE WEASEL TRIBE

Almost all the animals which belong to this tribe have very long, slender bodies and very short legs; and the reason is a simple one. They feed on living prey, which they often have to follow through a long and winding burrow. Now if they had stout bodies or long legs they could not do this. Most likely they could not enter the burrow at all; and even if they did so they would be almost sure to find, before they had gone very far, that they could neither move forward or backward. But, having such snake-like bodies and such very short limbs, they can wind their way through the tunnels without any difficulty, and then spring upon their victim at the end.

They always try to seize their prey by the throat, in order to tear open the great blood-vessels which pa.s.s through that part of the body. One who had a personal experience of the strength and sharpness of their teeth thus tells it: "I was walking through a park one day early in the autumn, when I noticed that the dead leaves under a tree were tossing and tumbling about in a very curious manner. On going a little closer I found that a mother weasel and her little ones were playing together.

When I came up of course they all ran away. So I ran after them, and caught one of the little animals by putting my foot on it, just hard enough to hold it down on the ground without hurting it. And immediately the little creature, which was only about six inches long, twisted itself round, and drove its sharp teeth into the edge of the sole of my shoe, both from above and below. So that if I had done what I thought of doing at first and had stooped to pick it up, its teeth would certainly have met in my finger."

The weasel is common in many parts of the United States as well as in Europe. In some regions you can scarcely take a walk along the roads or through the fields without catching sight of it. Very likely it will poke its head out of a hole in the bank at the side of the road, and watch you in the most inquisitive manner as you go past. Or you may notice it slipping in and out of the herbage at the foot of a hedge, as it searches for the small creatures on which it feeds. But very often it will leave the hedge, and follow a mole along its burrow. Or it will make its way to a wheatstack, and pursue the mice through their "runs."

And it is very fond of going out bird's-nesting, and robbing the nests of the eggs or little ones which they contain. But the weasel is not always successful when he sets out on one of these expeditions. While coming down Helvellyn, a mountain in England, a writer witnessed a strange little scene. "Hearing a loud chattering," he says, "I looked up, and saw just above me a pair of stonechats and a weasel. Evidently the weasel had come too near the nest of the birds, and they were trying to entice him away. And this is how they managed it. First the c.o.c.k bird sat down on a stone about a yard in front of the weasel, and began to flap his wings, and to chatter and scream. The weasel immediately darted at him, and the bird flew away. Next the hen bird sat down on another stone a yard farther on, and began to flap her wings and to chatter and scream. Then the weasel darted at her, and _she_ flew away. As soon as she had gone the c.o.c.k came back, sat on a third stone, and played the same trick again. And so the two birds went on over and over again, till they got the weasel far up the mountain side, quite two hundred yards from the nest, when they quietly left him and flew away together.

"Wasn't it clever of them? And the odd thing was that the weasel never realized that he was being taken in, but evidently thought he was going to catch one of the birds every time that he darted at them."

When fully grown the European weasel is from eight to ten inches long, about one-fourth of that length being occupied by the tail. The fur of the upper parts of the body is brownish red in color, while that of the throat and lower surface is white.

In the United States are found various species of weasels, the largest of which is called the New York weasel. The length of the male is sixteen inches, that of the female thirteen inches, the tail being more than one-third of the total length. It is also called the long-tailed weasel. The smallest species is the least weasel, only six inches long. Both bear much resemblance to stoats. "The various kinds of weasels in this country," say Stone and Cram in their "American Animals," "are much alike in their habits.... They hunt tirelessly, following their prey by scent, and kill for the mere joy of killing, often leaving their victims uneaten and hurrying on for more."

THE STOAT, OR ERMINE

This is the commonest and most widely distributed of all the weasel tribe. The name is British. The fur of the lower parts of the stoat's body is pale yellow instead of white, while the tip of the tail is black. In very cold countries the whole of the fur becomes white in winter, like that of the arctic fox, the tip of the tail alone excepted.

Indeed, the famous ermine fur which we value so highly, and which even kings wear when they put on their robes of state, is nothing but the coat of the stoat in its winter dress.

The stoat preys upon rather larger animals than do other weasels, and many a hare and rabbit falls victim to its sharp little fangs. Strange to say, when one of these creatures is being followed by a stoat it seems almost paralyzed with fear, and instead of making its escape by dashing away at its utmost speed, drags itself slowly and painfully over the ground, uttering shrill cries of terror, although it has not been injured at all.

In poultry-yards the stoat is sometimes terribly mischievous. One stoat has been known to destroy as many as forty fowls in a single night. So both the gamekeeper and the farmer have very good reason for disliking it. But in some ways it is really very useful. It kills large numbers of mice and rats and voles, which often do such damage in the fields. And if we could set the good which it does against the evil, we should find that the former more than makes up for the latter.

THE POLECAT