Gray fox

“ He could only turn up his nose and snarl slowly, for he was trying with all his might to plan what to do next. He was the richest fox in the world—the only living creature with nine golden tails—but what good were they to him if these silly creatures would not wait on him and worship him? In all the years he had lived among them he had been greedy and selfish and cross and ugly, and now he had not a single friend. ”

“ As the fox strutted feebly and slowly through the leaves and over the dewy grass where he had once scampered and frolicked, suddenly he saw a procession of all the creatures of the wood, with the monkey ahead, coming to meet him, for they were very curious to know if he would get his golden tails. He stopped and stood silent and haughty, waiting for them. They gathered around him, but said never a word. And so he cried out shrilly:
“Behold your King! I am the most wonderful animal in all the world. ”

“ 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." ”

“ Foxes.—The Gray Fox is found in great numbers throughout the country, and ventures more boldly than any other species into the neighborhood of human habitations. It exhibits different colors at different seasons and ages; its general color is grizzly, growing gradually darker from the fore shoulders to the hinder part of the back. The inferior parts of the body are white, tinged slightly with faint reddish brown. The tail is thick and bushy. The Red Fox is a very beautiful species, and abounds in the middle and southern states, where it proves very troublesome to poultry-yards. ”

“ But the hunter who traps the fox for its own sake, and not as an uncalculated extra to the mink-hunt or the beaver total, must go to the Far North, to the land of winter night and midnight sun, to obtain the best fox-skins.
It matters not to the trapper that the little kit fox or swift at run among the hills between the Missouri and Saskatchewan is the most shapely of all the fox kind, with as finely pointed a nose as a spitz dog, ears alert as a terrier's and a brush, more like a lady's gray feather boa than fur, curled round his dainty toes. ”

“ The Red Fox is the only species that abounds in my locality; the little Gray Fox seems to prefer a more rocky and precipitous country, and a less vigorous climate; the Cross Fox is occasionally seen, and there are traditions of the Silver Gray among the oldest hunters. ”

“ The darkness was just stealing away when he came to the big hollow tree and knocked twice.
“Alas, Most Powerful One, I am here again,” he cried, as the dragon writhed [Pg 68] slowly out. “It is quite as bad to be a wise man as a pretty woman—one is stupid, the other useless. A fox is a far finer creature than either of them, so make me a fox again, O mightiest of living things, and this time will I be content for the thousand years to pass.”
“Will you never be satisfied?” snorted the dragon. “You are not willing to be what nature made you and you don’t like anything I do for you. ”

“ They don’t have half as much fun as a fox.” But as the years went by he grew so tired of skulking and hiding [Pg 7] about, and being nothing but a common, every-day, bushy-tailed gray fox that he almost decided to compromise the matter.
“After all, there are worse things in the world than pretty women,” he said, scratching his ear, “and wise men have their uses.” ”

“ The silver fox is a rare animal, a native of the woody country below the falls of the Columbia River. It has a long, thick, deep lead-colored fur, intermingled with long hairs, invariably white at the top, forming a bright lustrous silver gray, esteemed by some more beautiful than any other kind of fox.
The skins of the buffalo, of the Rocky Mountain sheep, of various deer and of the antelope, are included in the fur trade with the Indians and trappers of the north and west. ”

“ Is a smaller species than the common Fox, and has a much longer fur to fit him for the severe cold which he necessarily experiences in the Polar regions which he inhabits. The colour of the fur is frequently a bluish leaden gray, from which circumstance it is sometimes called the Blue Fox; some specimens are brownish, others nearly black. The fur becomes pure white in the winter, and in this state the Arctic Fox is an exceedingly pretty animal. This species is captured for the sake of its skin, the bluish specimens being preferred. ”

“ This animal, which resembles a small dog, is widely distributed over the colder portions of both continents. There are several species, as the red, gray, black, silver, arctic, &c. In all ages and countries, the fox has been remarkable for his cunning, and, from the time of Æsop to the present day, has figured, in allegory and fable, as the personification of artifice and duplicity. ”

“ CHAPTER XVIII UNDER THE NORTH STAR—WHERE FOX AND ERMINE RUN I Of Foxes, Many and Various—Red, Cross, Silver, Black, Prairie, Kit or Swift, Arctic, Blue, and Gray
Wherever grouse and rabbit abound, there will foxes run and there will the hunter set steel-traps. But however beautiful a fox-skin may be as a specimen, it has value as a fur only when it belongs to one of three varieties—Arctic, black, and silver. Other foxes—red, cross, prairie, swift, and gray—the trapper will take when they cross his path and sell them in the gross at the fur post, as he used to barter buffalo-hides. ”

“ Often it is difficult to decide where one type leaves off and another begins. The Cross Fox stands midway between the Red and Black, with some of the yellow color of the former on the sides of the neck and behind the foreleg, while the remainder of the general color is grizzled gray-brown laid across his shoulders in a more or less distinct cross. The Black Fox varies in color from very dark iron-gray to dark brown or black, with a slight wash of white-tipped hairs over the head, body and tail. ”

“ There he fell down, a heap of skin and bones, and called feebly for the dragon. When this terrible creature [Pg 48] came out it blew fire and smoke at him in awful wrath.
“I thought you wanted to be a fox with nine golden tails. Why have you disturbed me?” it thundered.
“A fox with nine golden tails is a nice thing to talk about,” the poor fox whimpered, “but a wise man is better than a dead fox, even if it had twenty golden tails, so make me a wizard, Great One, and then will I trouble you no more.” ”

“ Nothing will satisfy me except to be a fox with nine golden tails.”
With never a regret he went back to the old life, and hunted mice and creeping things when he got hungry, and when there was neither moon nor stars, ran through the black night to the farm house far beyond the edge of the forest, and came back in the gray of the morning with his lips all bloody and his paws as well—the [Pg 44] signs of his midnight feast in the chicken yard. ”

“ Now a beautiful woman does very well in her place and it is a great honor to be a wise man, but a fox with nine golden tails is the most wonderful thing in all the world. For that reason when the fox was very young, only about sixty or seventy-five, he thought he would refuse to be changed into either a woman or a wizard and would wait for his thousandth birthday. ”

“ One of these things was that if he lived to be one hundred years old without ever being chased by a dog, he could become a beautiful woman; if he lived for five hundred years and never a dog pursued him, he could be changed into a mighty wizard who would know more than any man on earth; but, better than all, after a thousand years of peace he [Pg 6] would turn into a celestial fox and have nine golden tails. ”

“ The snail had been heard to stoutly declare he wouldn’t run from it anyway, but as the orang-outang reminded him, it was very easy to be brave before you saw it coming, but he had heard of snails that got in such a hurry they left their houses behind them. The bear asked the very important question: “How many legs has a dragon?” And when the tortoise said it must have at least a million, since a centipede had a hundred, the bear was comforted, for as he wisely told the fox, one need not be afraid of anything if it has more than four legs. ”

“ And it was pleasant to wear lovely clothes, and eat sharks’ fins and birds’ nest soup and bamboo shoots and lotus bulbs and other delicacies [Pg 35] that only very rich people can have in Japan. And she was glad to think she wasn’t a fox, hiding out in brier patches, always listening for dogs and sometimes hungry. Surely it was much better to be a Princess than a fox. ”

“ This species is distinctly smaller and more lightly built than the red, its hair is not so luxuriant, it is more shy and retiring, and its colors change very little. When hotly pursued by dogs it often climbs trees that are quite perpendicular, to a height of twenty feet or more. In captivity Gray Foxes are forever trying to escape by climbing, instead of by burrowing, as would naturally be expected. In temper, they are treacherous to their keepers, and also to each other, and as “pets” are anything but desirable. ”

“ At this the animals set up a shout that echoed through the forest. The monkey laughed until he had to hold on to the limb of a tree by his tail to keep from falling off, the bear grinned at first and then let [Pg 79] out loud ha! ha’s! the hen cackled, the owls whoo-ed, the crickets chirped, the pigeons coo-ed with such glee they gurgled and choked, the rooster crowed, the parrot shrieked, the peafowl screamed, the ducks squawked, the frogs croaked and young Luxuriant-Thick-Mud-Master bellowed until the earth shook.
The fox was at first dazed. ”

“ But as he sat down, he felt the touch of a cold nose on his hand and one little lick. He glanced down, and looked into the sad, wistful eyes of the wire-haired fox terrier. With this, Penwiper dropped gravely upon the floor, gazing up adoring and mournful, yet content. Mr. Carteret was used to this idolatry, as he was used to the patter of the following footsteps, but on this occasion it provoked speculation. It occurred to him to wonder how in a [Pg 89] just universe a devotion like Penwiper’s would be repaid. Then he wondered if, after all, it was a just universe. ”

“ His bushy tail is the envied trophy of the huntsman, who calls it a brush. His colours are white, black, red, yellow, bluish, or variegated; and in cold climates he always turns white in winter. The father takes no care of his children; but the mother performs her duty with the most exemplary devotion for four months.
The fox is generally a solitary, suspicious animal; even when as much tamed as he can be, he seems to think he is going to be deceived and ill-treated: perhaps he judges of others by himself. ”

“ And then the unexpected happened, as in fox-hunting it usually does. Hounds found in a far corner of the wood, and disappeared on a burning scent before any one could get to them. Instantly the world seemed to be filled with people galloping in all directions, inquiring where hounds had gone, and receiving no satisfactory answer. Experience had taught Mr. Carteret that under such conditions the most unfortunate thing to do is to follow others who know as little as one’s self. Accordingly he opened a hand gate, withdrew a few yards into a secluded lane, pulled up, and tried to think like a fox. ”

“ But as the hounds viewed the fox so did the three sons of the wilderness who were following close behind. From the hilltop fifty of the hardest going men in England saw Hole-in-the-Ground flogging his horse with the heavy quirt which hung from his wrist. ”

“ If he can leap the wall, or creep in beneath the gate, he ravages the court-yard, puts all to death, and retires with his prey. He hunts the young hares in the plains; and seizes the old ones in their seats. The eye of the Fox is of a lively hazel colour, and very expressive. ”

“ Our Northern fox-grape, Vitis labrosca, is wholly confined to the Atlantic States, except that it reappears in Japan and that region. Wistaria was named for a woody leguminous climber, with showy blossoms; native of the Middle Atlantic States. The other species which we prize so highly in cultivation, W. sinensis, is from China, as its name indicates, or perhaps only from Japan, where it is certainly indigenous. Our yellow-wood (cladrastis) inhabits a very limited district on the western slope of the Alleghanies. ”

“ He is remarkably playful, but, like all savage creatures half reclaimed, will on the least offence bite even those with whom he is most familiar.
He is never to be fully tamed; he languishes when deprived of liberty, and if kept too long in a domestic state he dies of chagrin. When abroad, he is often seen to amuse himself with his fine bushy tail, running sometimes for a considerable while in circles to catch it. In cold weather he wraps it about his nose.
In the northern countries there is a black fox, a variety of the common fox. ”

“ The most obvious difference is in color: the throat and chest of the old fox are whitish, also the tip of the tail; the back of the ears, the front and outer surface of the paws to near the elbows and knees, are black, and there are scattered black hairs on the tail; the rest of the body is reddish brown; and as a whole the animal would be called a "red fox," although a stripe across the shoulders of a darker red might entitle it to the name of "cross" fox. ”

“ Hole-in-the-Ground had caught the fox!
“Most unprecedented!” Mr. Carteret heard the Major exclaim. He pulled up his horse, as the field did theirs, and waited apprehensively. He saw Hole-in-the-Ground circle around, jerk the Major’s five hundred guinea hunter to a standstill close to Lord Ploversdale and address him. He was speaking in his own language.
As the Chief went on, he saw Grady smile.
“He says,” said Grady translating, “that the white chief can eat the fox if he wants him. He’s proud himself bein’ packed with store grub.”
The English onlookers heard and beheld with blank faces. ”