CLASS MAMMALIA. 51
single species only of Marten, and that the one whose name
appears above.
Family CANIDAE.
Genus Canis, Linn.
Canis vulpes, Linn. Common Fox.
It is quite unnecessary to give any specific account of this
fortunately-common member of our Fauna, which is familiar
to almost everyone.
I say " fortunately-common," and long may it remain so ;
for the sport of which it is the object does great good in bring-
ing all classes together, encourages the breeding of horses,
trains our young men as fearless riders, and does not make its
votaries selfish and suspicious, as is the case with shooting,
fishing, and most other sports. So far as I know, the pursuit
of the Fox and its preservation are the causes of no serious
damage to anything except to a little poultry and game. The
advantages, on the contrary, are so manifest that we must be
content to lose these in exchange. So long as there are woods
in the country—and the present condition of agriculture gives
no reason to suppose they will be destroyed—so long will
there be Foxes, unless the game preserver takes to using
poison, and so effectually destroys the sport of the many for
the sake of a day or two's grand battue during the season for
a few. This I hope we may never see.
A drawing of a Fox's Earth—one of the many to be
found in Epping Forest—from the brush of Mr. H. A. Cole,
faces this page.
The cunning of the Fox is proverbial. Daniel, in his
Rural Sports (1812, vol. i., p. 273) relates one or two instances
observed in this country of its extraordinary sagacity, and of
its tenderness for its young. Thus, one was observed to drop
a cub from its mouth, after it had been hotly pursued for
many miles in the neighbourhood of Chelmsford.