The hungry fellow had
heard them from the hill above, where he was asleep, and had come down
to see if he could catch a few. He was creeping out onto the ice when
he smelled me, and trotted back into the woods.
Once I saw him catch a frog. He crept down to where Chigwooltz, a fat
green bullfrog, was sunning himself by a lily pad, and very cautiously
stretched out one paw under water. Then with a quick fling he tossed
his game to land, and was after him like a flash before he could
scramble back.
On the seacoast Reynard depends largely on the tides for a living. An
old fisherman assures me that he has seen him catching crabs there in
a very novel way. Finding a quiet bit of water where the crabs are
swimming about, he trails his brush over the surface till one rises
and seizes it with his claw (a most natural thing for a crab to do),
whereupon the fox springs away, jerking the crab to land. Though a fox
ordinarily is careful as a cat about wetting his tail or feet, I shall
not be surprised to find some day for myself that the fisherman was
right. Reynard is very ingenious, and never lets his little prejudices
stand in the way when he is after a dinner.
His way of beguiling a duck is more remarkable than his fishing. Late
one afternoon, while following the shore of a pond, I noticed a
commotion among some tame ducks, and stopped to see what it was about.
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