Consistent adversarial propaganda, politically elaborate methods of control, conservationist hocus-pocus, strident accusations from the uninformed, may relegate the Red Fox to the same dusty museum niche now occupied by the hen and the homing pigeon. The problem is that most people know so little about the fox and its place in the overall picture of wildlife that they wouldn’t recognize one if they found it in a phone booth. They try to solve the so-called “fox problem” through extermination campaigns, dumping bounties down the drain, and open seasons throughout the year. (Twenty states now have no closed season.) They never realize when they go apoplectic over the feathers of a grouse killed by a fox that a pair of these birds would fill a refuge with 33,000 epidemic-ridden offspring in less than six years if Nature did not cut off the surplus.

Likewise, having been taught since the days of Aesop that R. Fox is president, secretary, and treasurer of Cunning, Inc., it is almost impossible to make them believe that this same four-legged genius can sometimes be tempted at gunpoint by just squatting behind a haystack and making a noise like a field mouse hitting its wife. Even experienced nature lovers are unaware of many facts of fox lore. They may know that he mates for life; who sleeps outdoors all winter; who has a greater stroke of curiosity than a two-headed cat in a fish market; that his coat is prime when the guard hairs are full length, deeper in color, and embedded in the skin; which invariably leaves its tracks in a straight line.

But they don’t know that the tracks are straight because the manufacturer is narrow-chested, or that it’s built that way for maximum agility. They don’t know that the primacy of their fur is probably due, not to temperature, but to light intensity, specifically light received through the eyes, and light from the previous spring. Vulpes fulva is a curious concoction, a kind of flea-bitten Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. He thinks he owns the forest, spends most of his time trying to give someone a vulgar hot foot, and boasts of his reputation as a scoundrel. He feels friendly and returns hospitality rudely just for the sake of being testy. The exemplary acts of him who goes to great lengths to hide. Take his voice for example. It has a normal bark, something like a Pekingese with a Harvard accent, ending in a prolonged bray as if the animal had been suddenly transferred to Yale. But if he thinks someone is listening, he switches to a number that sounds like two cats tied by their tails and hung on a clothesline.

What will become of him? Only the devil knows, and he probably wouldn’t be in it.