4. But if you start a swift-footed dog after him you will enjoy it ever so much, especially if it is a dog that has a good opinion of himself, and has been brought up to think that he knows something about speed. The coyote will go swinging gently off on that deceitful trot of his, and every little while he will smile a fraudful smile over his shoulder that will fill that dog entirely full of encouragement and worldly ambition, and make him lay his head still lower to the ground, and stretch his neck farther to the front, and pant more fiercely, and move his furious. legs with a yet wilder frenzy, and leave a broader and broader and higher and denser cloud of desert sand smoking behind, and marking his long wake across the level plain.

5. All this time the dog is only a short twenty feet behind the coyote, and, to save the life of him, he cannot understand why it is that he cannot get perceptibly closer; and he begins to get aggravated, and it makes him madder and madder to see how gently the coyote glides along, and never pants or sweats or ceases to smile; and he grows still more and more incensed to see how shamefully he has been taken in by an entire stranger, and what an ignoble swindle that long, calm, soft-footed trot is.

6. And next the dog notices that he is getting fagged, and that the coyote actually has to slacken speed a little to keep from running away from him. And then that town-dog is mad in earnest, and he begins to strain, and weep, and swear, and paw the sand higher than ever, and reach for the coyote with concentrated and desperate energy.

7. This spurt finds him six feet behind the gliding enemy, and two miles from his friends. And then, in the instant that wild new hope is lighting up his face, the coyote turns

and smiles blandly upon him once more, and with a something about it which seems to say: Well, I shall have to tear myself away from you, but, - business is business, and it will not do for me to be fooling along this way all day." And forthwith there is a rushing sound, and the sudden splitting of a long crack through the atmosphere, and behold, that dog is solitary and alone in the midst of a vast solitude!

1. WHAT reader of Esop's Fables, can permit the word "fox" to pass through his mind without a smile? Every one has read Æsop, and every one appreciates the humor of the daring rascal who cheats the crow out of her beautiful piece of cheese by the most barefaced flattery, and who, when he had accidentally lost his tail in a trap from which he had hardly escaped with life, with the most unparalleled impudence assembled his friends, and representing the common habit of wearing tails to be plebeian in the ex

treme, recommended them to follow his example, and sacrifice their tails to fashion.

2. However fabulous Æsop's Fables may be, they go very little beyond the stories prevalent among sportsmen of the sagacity of the fox, more especially in its cunning in escaping from the hounds. Most people have heard of the clever fox, who, when the hounds were just behind him, leaped over a low wall, and lying flat on the opposite side, waited until all the hounds had cleared the wall, and were hurrying onward in eager pursuit, when he leaped back again, and, retracing his former path, contrived to escape.

3. In the year 1805, a fox was turned out on Pennenden heath, and was released just as a company of riflemen, who were exercising, had entered the heath. The animal, being alarmed at their fire, altered his course, and leaping over a high wall and several fences, made his way into Maidstone, and leaping on a water-butt scrambled upon the roof of a school-house. From there he sprang upon a chimney, and, seeing his pursuers close at hand, dropped down it.

4. The chimney was a double one, and in one division. there was no fire. Down this the fox scrambled, and hid himself in a funnel in the washhouse chimney. One of the sportsmen dismounted, and finding Reynard in his ignominious retreat, boldly dragged him out, not without considerable injury to his hands, and with the help of a friend forced him into a bag. So poor Reynard was carried to another heath, and again turned off. This time, all his cunning availed him little, and he was killed in the most approved style.

5. This is by no means a solitary instance of a fox taking refuge in a house. In one case, the animal surpassed

the performances of the chimney-descending Reynard just mentioned; as the animal let itself down a chimney, at the bottom of which was a fire, and tumbled into the lap of an old woman who was seated in the chimney-corner smoking her pipe. The poor old woman was terrified out of her wits, and retreated into a corner, followed by the children. The hounds chased the fox as far as the chimneytop, but did not dare to follow it any farther, so some of the sportsmen were obliged to enter the cabin and capture the fox, much to the relief of the terrified inhabitants.

6. Another fox, on being hard-pressed, rushed into a cottage, and sprang into a cradle, from which a mother had, only a few minutes before, taken her child. The stratagem was clever, but it did not succeed, for the hounds entered the cottage, and soon dragged the intruder from his lurking-place.

7. When a fox gets into a farm-yard, he makes tremendous havoc, as he silently carries off the poultry one by one, until he is scared by daylight or by sounds of approaching feet. Sometimes he is so eager that he is caught, but even in this predicament his presence of mind does not fail him. His usual method is to lie as if he were dead, and then watch his chance of escape. On one occasion, a fox having been surprised in a hen-house, simulated death with such exactness, that the owner of the slaughtered poultry thought that Reynard had overgorged himself, and perished of a surfeit. Congratulating herself on the fate of the robber, she seized him by the tail, and threw him out of the hen-house, when the fox picked himself up and scampered off.

8. Another time, a peasant, finding a fox in a hen-house, aimed a blow at him, which apparently killed him. The

man then took the fox up by the tail, slung him over his shoulder, and carried him out of the farm-yard, intending most probably to decorate his house with the brush, his barn with the head and paws, and his person with the skin. If so his meditations were speedily destroyed, for the fox had only shammed death, and finding his inverted position uncomfortable, took measures to relieve himself by administering a severe bite to the man. The affrighted peasant immediately dropped the fox, who set off as fast as he could, leaving his would-be captor in a state of mingled fright, pain, and fury.

9. A story is told of another fox, who displayed as much sagacity in getting out of an equally bad scrape. The animal had been caught in a pit-fall, and was lying apparently helpless at the bottom. A very stout peasant then brought a ladder, and having lowered it into the pit, descended slowly, in order to kill the fox. Reynard, however, had not the slightest intention of being killed, so just as the stout peasant placed his foot on the ground, the fox sprang on his back, then on his shoulders, and thence to the edge of the pit, thereby deferring the intended execution to an indefinite period, and injuring in no small degree, the temper of the man by whose means he had escaped.

10. Two foxes, located in a neighborhood where hares abounded, adopted an ingenious stratagem for capturing them. One of them lay in ambush on the side of the road; the other started the quarry and pursued it with ardor, with the object of driving the game into the road guarded by his associate. From time to time, by an occasional bark, the associate in ambush was notified how the chase was proceeding. When a hare was driven into the