The Project Gutenberg eBook ofEncyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, "Fox, George" to "France"

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Title: Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, "Fox, George" to "France"Author: VariousRelease date: May 14, 2011 [eBook #36104]Most recently updated: January 7, 2021Language: EnglishCredits: Produced by Marius Masi, Don Kretz and the OnlineDistributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net

Title: Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, "Fox, George" to "France"

Author: Various

Release date: May 14, 2011 [eBook #36104]Most recently updated: January 7, 2021

Language: English

Credits: Produced by Marius Masi, Don Kretz and the OnlineDistributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net

*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ENCYCLOPAEDIA BRITANNICA, 11TH EDITION, "FOX, GEORGE" TO "FRANCE" ***

Articles in This Slice

FOX, GEORGE(1624-1691), the founder of the “Society of Friends” or “Quakers,” was born at Drayton, Leicestershire, in July 1624. His father, Christopher Fox, called by the neighbours “Righteous Christer,” was a weaver by occupation; and his mother, Mary Lago, “an upright woman and accomplished above most of her degree,” was “of the stock of the martyrs.” George from his childhood “appeared of another frame than the rest of his brethren, being more religious, inward, still, solid and observing beyond his years”; and he himself declares: “When I came to eleven years of age I knew pureness and righteousness; for while a child I was taught how to walk to be kept pure.” Some of his relations wished that he should be educated for the ministry; but his father apprenticed him to a shoemaker, who also dealt in wool and cattle. In this service he remained till his nineteenth year. According to Penn, “he took most delight in sheep,” but he himself simply says: “A good deal went through my hands.... People had generally a love to me for my innocency and honesty.” In 1643, being upon business at a fair, and having accompanied some friends to the village public-house, he was troubled by a proposal to “drink healths,” and withdrew in grief of spirit. “When I had done what business I had to do I returned home, but did not go to bed that night, nor could I sleep, but sometimes walked up and down, and sometimes prayed and cried to the Lord, who said unto me, ‘Thou seest how young people go together into vanity and old people into the earth; thou must forsake all, both young and old, and keep out of all, and be a stranger unto all.’ Then, at the command of God, on the ninth day of the seventh month, 1643, I left my relations and broke off all familiarity or fellowship with old or young.”

Thus briefly he describes what appears to have been the greatest moral crisis in his life. The four years which followed were a time of great perplexity and distress, though sometimes “I had intermissions, and was sometimes brought into such a heavenly joy that I thought I had been in Abraham’s bosom.” He would go from town to town, “travelling up and down as a stranger in the earth, which way the Lord inclined my heart; taking a chamber to myself in the town where I came, and tarrying sometimes a month, more or less, in a place”; and the reason he gives for this migratory habit is that he was “afraid both of professor and profane, lest, being a tender young man, he should be hurt by conversing much with either.” The same fear often led him to shun all society for days at a time; but frequently he would apply to “professors” for spiritual direction and consolation. These applications, however, never proved successful; he invariably found that his advisers “possessed not what they professed.” Some recommended marriage, others enlistment as a soldier in the civil wars; one “ancient priest” bade him take tobacco and sing psalms; another of the same fraternity, “in high account,” advised physic and blood-letting.

About the beginning of 1646 his thoughts began to take more definite shape. One day, approaching Coventry, “the Lord opened to him” that none were true believers but such as were born of God and had passed from death unto life; and this was soon followed by other “openings” to the effect that “being bred at Oxford or Cambridge was not enough to fit and qualify men to be ministers of Christ,” and that “God who made the world did not dwell in temples made with hands.” He also experienced deeper manifestations of Christ within his own soul. “When I myself was in the deep, shut up under all [the burden of corruptions], I could not believe that I should everovercome; my troubles, my sorrows and my temptations were so great that I thought many times I should have despaired, I was so tempted. But when Christ opened to me how He was tempted by the same devil, and overcame him and bruised his head, and that through Him, and His power, light, grace and spirit, I should overcome also, I had confidence in Him; so He it was that opened to me, when I was shut up and had no hope nor faith. Christ, who had enlightened me, gave me His light to believe in; He gave me hope which He himself revealed in me; and He gave me His spirit and grace, which I found sufficient in the deeps and in weakness.” In 1647 he records that at a time when all outward help had failed “I heard a voice which said, ‘There is one, even Christ Jesus, that can speak to thy condition.’ And when I heard it my heart did leap for joy.” In the same year he first openly declared his message in the neighbourhood of Dukinfield and Manchester (seeFriends, Society of).

In 1649, as he was walking towards Nottingham, he heard the bell of the “steeple house” of the city, and was admonished by an inward voice to go forward and cry against the great idol and the worshippers in it. Entering the church he found the preacher engaged in expounding the words, “We have also a more sure word of prophecy,” from which the ordinary Protestant doctrine of the supreme authority of Scripture was being enforced in a manner which appeared to Fox so defective or erroneous as to call for his immediate and most energetic protest. Lifting up his voice against the preacher’s doctrine, he declared that it is not by the Scripture alone, but by the divine light by which the Scriptures were given, that doctrines ought to be judged. He was carried off to prison, where he was detained for some time, and from which he was released only by the favour of the sheriff, whose sympathies he had succeeded in enlisting. In 1650 he was imprisoned for about a year at Derby on a charge of blasphemy. On his release, overwrought and weakened by six months spent “in the common gaol and dungeon,” he performed what was almost the only and certainly the most pronounced act of his life which had the appearance of wild fanaticism. Through the streets of Lichfield, on market day, he walked barefoot, crying, “Woe to the bloody city of Lichfield.” His own explanation of the act, connecting it with the martyrdom of a thousand Christians in the time of Diocletian, is not convincing. His proceeding was probably due to a horror of the city arising from a subconscious memory of what he must have heard in childhood from his mother (“of the stock of the martyrs”) concerning a martyr, a woman, burnt in the reign of Mary at Lichfield, who had been taken thither from Mancetter, a village two miles from his home in which he had worked as a journeyman shoemaker (seeThe Martyrs Glover and Lewis of Mancetter, by the Rev. B. Richings). He must also have heard of the burning of Edward Wightman in the same city in 1612, the last person burned for heresy in England.

It would be here out of place to follow with any minuteness the details of his subsequent imprisonments, such as that at Carlisle in 1653; London 1654; Launceston 1656; Lancaster 1660, and again in 1663, whence he was taken to Scarborough in 1665; and Worcester 1673. During these terms of imprisonment his pen was not idle, as is amply shown by the very numerous letters, pastorals and exhortations which have been preserved; while during his intervals of liberty he was unwearied in the work of “declaring truth” in all parts of the country. In 1669 he married Margaret, widow of Judge Fell, of Swarthmoor, near Ulverston, who, with her family, had been among his earliest converts. In 1671 he visited Barbados, Jamaica, and the American continent, and shortly after his return in 1673 he was, as has been already noted, apprehended in Worcestershire for attending meetings that were forbidden by the law. At Worcester he suffered a captivity of nearly fourteen months. In 1677 he visited Holland along with Barclay, Penn and seven others; and this visit he repeated (with five others) in 1684. The later years of his life were spent mostly in London, where he continued to speak in public, comparatively unmolested, until within a few days of his death, which took place on the 13th of January 1691 (1690 O.S.).

William Penn has left on record an account of Fox from personal knowledge—aBrief Account of the Rise and Progress of the People called Quakers, written as a preface to Fox’sJournal. Although a man of large size and great bodily strength, he was “very temperate, eating little and sleeping less.” He was a man of strong personality, of measured utterance, “civil” (says Penn) “beyond all forms of breeding.” From hisJournalwe gather that he had piercing eyes and a very loud voice, and wore good clothes. Unlike the Roundheads, he wore his hair long. Even before his marriage with Margaret Fell he seems to have been fairly well off; he does not appear to have worked for a living after he was nineteen, and yet he had a horse, and speaks of having money to give to those who were in need. He had much practical common-sense, and keen sympathy for all who were in distress and for animals. The mere fact that he was able to attract to himself so considerable a body of respectable followers, including such men as Ellwood, Barclay, Penington and Penn, is sufficient to prove that he possessed in a very eminent degree the power of conviction, persuasion, and moral ascendancy; while of his personal uprightness, single-mindedness and sincerity there can be no question.

The writings of Fox are enumerated in Joseph Smith’sCatalogue of Friends’ Books. TheJournalis especially interesting; of it Sir James Mackintosh has said that “it is one of the most extraordinary and instructive narratives in the world, which no reader of competent judgment can peruse without revering the virtue of the writer.” TheJournalwas originally published in London in 1694; the edition known as the Bicentenary Edition, with notes biographical and historical (reprint of 1901 or later), will be found the most useful in practice. An exact transcript of theJournalhas been issued by the Cambridge University Press. ALife of George Fox, by Dr Thomas Hodgkin;The Fells of Swarthmoor Hall, by Maria Webb; andThe Life and Character of George Fox, by John Stephenson Rowntree, are valuable. For a mention of other works, and for details of the principles and history of the Society of Friends, together with some further information about Fox, see the articleFriends, Society of.

(A. N. B.)

FOX, RICHARD(c. 1448-1528), successively bishop of Exeter, Bath and Wells, Durham, and Winchester, lord privy seal, and founder of Corpus Christi College, Oxford, was born about 1448 at Ropesley near Grantham, Lincolnshire. His parents belonged to the yeoman class, and there is some obscurity about Fox’s early career. It is not known at what school he was educated, nor at what college, though the presumption is in favour of Magdalen, Oxford, whence he drew so many members of his subsequent foundation, Corpus Christi. He also appears to have studied at Cambridge, but nothing definite is known of the firstthirty-fiveyears of his career. In 1484 he was in Paris, whether merely for the sake of learning or because he had rendered himself obnoxious to Richard III. is a matter of speculation. At any rate he was brought into contact with the earl of Richmond, who was then beginning his quest for the English throne, and was taken into his service. In January 1485 Richard intervened to prevent Fox’s appointment to the vicarage of Stepney on the ground that he was keeping company with the “great rebel, Henry ap Tuddor.”

The important offices conferred on Fox immediately after the battle of Bosworth imply that he had already seen more extensive political service than can be traced in records. Doubtless Henry VII. had every reason to reward his companions in exile, and to rule like Ferdinand of Aragon by means of lawyers and churchmen rather than trust nobles like those who had made the Wars of the Roses. But without an intimate knowledge of Fox’s political experience and capacity he would hardly have made him his principal secretary, and soon afterwards lord privy seal and bishop of Exeter (1487). The ecclesiastical preferment was merely intended to provide a salary not at Henry’s expense; for Fox never saw either Exeter or the diocese of Bath and Wells to which he was translated in 1492. His activity was confined to political and especially diplomatic channels; so long as Morton lived, Fox was his subordinate, but after the archbishop’s death he was second to none in Henry’s confidence, and he had an important share in all the diplomaticwork of the reign. In 1487 he negotiated a treaty with James III. of Scotland, in 1491 he baptized the future Henry VIII., in 1492 he helped to conclude the treaty of Etaples, and in 1497 he was chief commissioner in the negotiations for the famous commercial agreement with the Netherlands which Bacon seems to have been the first to call theMagnus Intercursus.

Meanwhile in 1494 Fox had been translated to Durham, not merely because it was a richer see than Bath and Wells but because of its political importance as a palatine earldom and its position with regard to the Borders and relations with Scotland. For these reasons rather than from any ecclesiastical scruples Fox visited and resided in his new diocese; and he occupied Norham Castle, which he fortified and defended against a Scottish raid in Perkin Warbeck’s interests (1497). But his energies were principally devoted to pacific purposes. In that same year he negotiated Perkin’s retirement from the court of James IV., and in 1498-1499 he completed the negotiations for that treaty of marriage between the Scottish king and Henry’s daughter Margaret which led ultimately to the union of the two crowns in 1603 and of the two kingdoms in 1707. The marriage itself did not take place until 1503, just a century before the accession of James I.

This consummated Fox’s work in the north, and in 1501 he was once more translated to Winchester, then reputed the richest bishopric in England. In that year he brought to a conclusion marriage negotiations not less momentous in their ultimate results, when Prince Arthur was betrothed to Catherine of Aragon. His last diplomatic achievement in the reign of Henry VII. was the betrothal of the king’s younger daughter Mary to the future emperor Charles V. In 1500 he was elected chancellor of Cambridge University, an office not confined to noble lords until a much more democratic age, and in 1507 master of Pembroke Hall in the same university. The Lady Margaret Beaufort made him one of her executors, and in this capacity as well as in that of chancellor, he had the chief share with Fisher in regulating the foundation of St John’s College and the Lady Margaret professorships and readerships. His financial work brought him a less enviable notoriety, though a curious freak of history has deprived him of the credit which is his due for “Morton’s fork.” The invention of that ingenious dilemma for extorting contributions from poor and rich alike is ascribed as a tradition to Morton by Bacon; but the story is told in greater detail of Fox by Erasmus, who says he had it from Sir Thomas More, a well-informed contemporary authority. It is in keeping with the somewhat malicious saying about Fox reported by Tyndale that he would sacrifice his father to save his king, which after all is not so damning as Wolsey’s dying words.

The accession of Henry VIII. made no immediate difference to Fox’s position. If anything, the substitution of the careless pleasure-loving youth for Henry VII. increased the power of his ministry, the personnel of which remained unaltered. The Venetian ambassador calls Fox “alter rex” and the Spanish ambassador Carroz says that Henry VIII. trusted him more than any other adviser, although he also reports Henry’s warning that the bishop of Winchester was, as his name implied, “a fox indeed.” He was the chief of the ecclesiastical statesmen who belonged to the school of Morton, believed in frequent parliaments, and opposed the spirited foreign policy which laymen like Surrey are supposed to have advocated. His colleagues were Warham and Ruthal, but Warham and Fox differed on the question of Henry’s marriage. Fox advising the completion of the match with Catherine while Warham expressed doubts as to its canonical validity. They also differed over the prerogatives of Canterbury with regard to probate and other questions of ecclesiastical jurisdiction.

Wolsey’s rapid rise in 1511 put an end to Fox’s influence. The pacific policy of the first two years of Henry VIII.’s reign was succeeded by an adventurous foreign policy directed mainly against France; and Fox complained that no one durst do anything in opposition to Wolsey’s wishes. Gradually Warham and Fox retired from the government; the occasion of Fox’s resignation of the privy seal was Wolsey’s ill-advised attempt to drive Francis I. out of Milan by financing an expedition led by the emperor Maximilian in 1516. Tunstall protested, Wolsey took Warham’s place as chancellor, and Fox was succeeded by Ruthal, who, said the Venetian ambassador, “sang treble to Wolsey’s bass.” He bore Wolsey no ill-will, and warmly congratulated him two years later when warlike adventures were abandoned at the peace of London. But in 1522 when war was again declared he emphatically refused to bear any part of the responsibility, and in 1523 he opposed in convocation the financial demands which met with a more strenuous resistance in the House of Commons.

He now devoted himself assiduously to his long-neglected episcopal duties. He expressed himself as being as anxious for the reformation of the clergy as Simeon for the coming of the Messiah; but while he welcomed Wolsey’s never-realized promises, he was too old to accomplish much himself in the way of remedying the clerical and especially the monastic depravity, licence and corruption he deplored. His sight failed during the last ten years of his life, and there is no reason to doubt Matthew Parker’s story that Wolsey suggested his retirement from his bishopric on a pension. Fox replied with some warmth, and Wolsey had to wait until Fox’s death before he could add Winchester to his archbishopric of York and his abbey of St Albans, and thus leave Durham vacant as he hoped for the illegitimate son on whom (aged 18) he had already conferred a deanery, four archdeaconries, five prebends and a chancellorship.

The crown of Fox’s career was his foundation of Corpus Christi College, which he established in 1515-1516. Originally he intended it as an Oxford house for the monks of St Swithin’s, Winchester; but he is said to have been dissuaded by Bishop Oldham, who denounced the monks and foretold their fall. The scheme adopted breathed the spirit of the Renaissance; provision was made for the teaching of Greek, Erasmus lauded the institution and Pole was one of its earliest fellows. The humanist Vives was brought from Italy to teach Latin, and the reader in theology was instructed to follow the Greek and Latin Fathers rather than the scholastic commentaries. Fox also built and endowed schools at Taunton and Grantham, and was a benefactor to numerous other institutions. He died at Wolvesey on the 5th of October 1528; Corpus possesses several portraits and other relics of its founder.

SeeLetters and Papers of Henry VII. and Henry VIII., vols. i.-iv.;Spanish and Venetian Calendars of State Papers; Gairdner’sLollardy and the Reformation and Church History 1485-1558; Pollard’sHenry VIII.; Longman’s Political History, vol. v.; other authorities cited in the article by Dr T. Fowler (formerly president of Corpus) in theDict. Nat. Biog.

(A. F. P.)

FOX, RORERT WERE(1789-1877), English geologist and natural philosopher, was born at Falmouth on the 26th of April 1789. He was a member of the Society of Friends, and was descended from members who had long settled in Cornwall, although he was not related to George Fox who had introduced the community into the county. He was distinguished for his researches on the internal temperature of the earth, being the first to prove that the heat increased definitely with the depth; his observations being conducted in Cornish mines from 1815 for a period of forty years. In 1829 he commenced a series of experiments on the artificial production of miniature metalliferous veins by means of the long-continued influence of electric currents, and his main results were published inObservations on Mineral Veins(Rep. Royal Cornwall Polytech. Soc., 1836). He was one of the founders in 1833 of the Royal Cornwall Polytechnic Society. He constructed in 1834 an improved form of deflector dipping needle. In 1848 he was elected F.R.S. His garden at Penjerrick near Falmouth became noted for the number of exotic plants which he had naturalized. He died on the 25th of July 1877. (SeeA Catalogue of the Works of Robert Were Fox, F.R.S., with a Sketch of his Life, by J.H. Collins, 1878.)

His daughter,Caroline Fox(1819-1871), born at Falmouth on the 24th of May 1819, is well known as the authoress of adiary, recording memories of many distinguished people, such as John Stuart Mill, John Sterling and Carlyle. Selections from her diary and correspondence (1835-1871) were published under the title ofMemories of Old Friends(ed. by H.N. Pym, 1881; 2nd ed., 1882). She died on the 12th of January 1871.

FOX, SIR STEPHEN(1627-1716), English statesman, born on the 27th of March 1627, was the son of William Fox, of Farley, in Wiltshire, a yeoman farmer. At the age of fifteen he first obtained a situation in the household of the earl of Northumberland; then he entered the service of Lord Percy, the earl’s brother, and was present with the royalist army at the battle of Worcester as Lord Percy’s deputy at the ordnance board. Accompanying Charles II. in his flight to the continent, he was appointed manager of the royal household, on Clarendon’s recommendation as “a young man bred under the severe discipline of Lord Percy ... very well qualified with languages, and all other parts of clerkship, honesty and discretion.” The skill with which he managed the exiguous finances of the exiled court earned him further confidence and promotion. He was employed on several important missions, and acted eventually as intermediary between the king and General Monk. Honours and emolument were his reward after the Restoration; he was appointed to the lucrative offices of first clerk of the board of green cloth and paymaster-general of the forces. In November 1661 he became member of parliament for Salisbury. In 1665 he was knighted, was returned as M. P. for Westminster on the 27th of February 1679, and succeeded the earl of Rochester as a commissioner of the treasury, filling that office for twenty-three years and during three reigns. In 1680 he resigned the paymastership and was made first commissioner of horse. In 1684 he became sole commissioner of horse. He was offered a peerage by James II., on condition of turning Roman Catholic, but refused, in spite of which he was allowed to retain his commissionerships. In 1685 he was again M. P. for Salisbury, and opposed the bill for a standing army supported by the king. During the Revolution he maintained an attitude of decent reserve, but on James’s flight, submitted to William III., who confirmed him in his offices. He was again elected for Westminster in 1691 and 1695, for Cricklade in 1698, and finally in 1713 once more for Salisbury. He died on the 28th of October 1716. It is his distinction to have founded Chelsea hospital, and to have contributed £13,000 in aid of this laudable public work. Though his place as a statesman is in the second or even the third rank, yet he was a useful man in his generation, and a public servant who creditably discharged all the duties with which he was entrusted. Unlike other statesmen of his day, he grew rich in the service of the nation without being suspected of corruption, and without forfeiting the esteem of his contemporaries.

He was twice married (1651 and 1703); by his first wife, Elizabeth Whittle, he had seven sons, who predeceased him, and three daughters; by his second, Christian Hopes, he had two sons and two daughters. The elder son by the second marriage, Stephen (1704-1776), was created Lord Ilchester and Stavordale in 1747 and earl of Ilchester in 1756; in 1758 he took the additional name of Strangways, and his descendants, the family of Fox-Strangways, still hold the earldom of Ilchester. The younger son, Henry, became the 1st Lord Holland (q.v.).

FOX, SIR WILLIAM(1812-1893), New Zealand statesman, third son of George Townshend Fox, deputy-lieutenant for Durham county, was born in England on the 9th of June 1812, and educated at Wadham College, Oxford, where he took his degree in 1832. Called to the bar in 1842, he emigrated immediately thereafter to New Zealand, where, on the death of Captain Arthur Wakefield, killed in 1843 in the Wairau massacre, he became the New Zealand Company’s agent for the South Island. While holding this position he made a memorable exploring march on foot from Nelson to Canterbury, through Cannibal Gorge, in the course of which he discovered the fertile pastoral country of Amuri. In 1848 Governor Grey made Fox attorney-general, but he gave up the post almost at once in order to join the agitation, then at its height, for a free constitution. As the political agent of the Wellington settlers he sailed to London in 1850 to urge their demands in Downing Street. The colonial office, however, refused to recognize him, and, after publishing a sketch of the New Zealand settlements,The Six Colonies of New Zealand, and travelling in the United States, he returned to New Zealand and again threw himself with energy into public affairs. When government by responsible ministers was at last initiated, in 1856, Fox ousted the first ministry and formed a cabinet, only to be himself beaten in turn after holding office but thirteen days. In 1861 he regained office, and was somewhat more fortunate, for he remained premier for nearly thirteen months. Again, in the latter part of 1863 he took office: this time with Sir Frederick Whitaker as premier, an arrangement which endured for another thirteen months. Fox’s third premiership began in 1869 and lasted until 1872. His fourth, which was a matter of temporary convenience to his party, lasted only five weeks in March and April 1873. Soon afterwards he left politics, and, though he reappeared after some years and led the attack which overthrew Sir George Grey’s ministry in 1879, he lost his seat in the dissolution which followed in that year and did not again enter parliament. He was made K.C.M.G. in 1880.

For the thirty years between 1850 and 1880 Sir William Fox was one of the half-dozen most notable public men in the colony. Impulsive and controversial, a fluent and rousing speaker, and a ready writer, his warm and sympathetic nature made him a good friend and a troublesome foe. He was considered for many years to be the most dangerous leader of the Opposition in the colony’s parliament, though as premier he was at a disadvantage when measured against more patient and more astute party managers. His activities were first devoted to secure self-government for the New Zealand colonists. Afterwards his sympathies made him prominent among the champions of the Maori race, and he laboured indefatigably for their rights and to secure permanent peace with the tribes and a just settlement of their claims. It was during his third premiership that this peace, so long deferred, was at last gained, mainly through the influence and skill of Sir Donald M’Lean, native minister in the Fox cabinet. Finally, after Fox had left parliament he devoted himself, as joint-commissioner with Sir Francis Dillon Bell, to the adjustment of the native land-claims on the west coast of the North Island. The able reports of the commissioners were his last public service, and the carrying out of their recommendations gradually removed the last serious native trouble in New Zealand. When, however, in the course of the native wars from 1860 to 1870 the colonists of New Zealand were exposed to cruel and unjust imputations in England, Fox zealously defended them in a book,The War in New Zealand(1866), which was not only a spirited vindication of his fellow-settlers, but a scathing criticism of the generalship of the officers commanding the imperial troops in New Zealand. Throughout his life Fox was a consistent advocate of total abstinence. It was he who founded the New Zealand Alliance, and he undoubtedly aided the growth of the prohibition movement afterwards so strong in the colony. He died on the 23rd of June 1893, exactly twelve months after his wife, Sarah, daughter of William Halcombe.

(W. P. R.)

FOX, a name (female, “vixen”1) properly applicable to the single wild British representative of the familyCanidae(seeCarnivora), but in a wider sense used to denote fox-like species from all parts of the world, inclusive of many from South America which do not really belong to the same group. The fox was included by Linnaeus in the same genus with the dog and the wolf, under the name ofCanis vulpes, but at the present day is regarded by most naturalists as the type of a separate genus, and should then be known asVulpes alopexorVulpes vulpes. Fromdogs, wolves, jackals, &c., which constitute the genusCanisin its more restricted sense, foxes are best distinguished by the circumstance that in the skull the (postorbital) projection immediately behind the socket for the eye has its upper surface concave, with a raised ridge in front, in place of regularly convex. Another character is the absence of a hollow chamber, or sinus, within the frontal bone of the forehead. Foxes are likewise distinguished by their slighter build, longer and bushy tail, which always exceeds half the length of the head and body, sharper muzzle, and relatively longer body and shorter limbs. Then again, the ears are large in proportion to the head, the pupil of the eye is elliptical and vertical when in a strong light, and the female has six pairs of teats, in place of the three to five pairs found in dogs, wolves and jackals. From the North American grey foxes, constituting the genus or subgenusUrocyon, the true foxes are distinguished by the absence of a crest of erectile long hairs along the middle line of the upper surface of the tail, and also of a projection (subangular process) to the postero-inferior angle of the lower jaw. With the exception of certain South African species, foxes differ from wolves and jackals in that they do not associate in packs, but go about in pairs or are solitary.

From the Scandinavian peninsula and the British Islands the range of the fox extends eastwards across Europe and central and northern Asia to Japan, while to the south it embraces northern Africa and Arabia, Persia, Baluchistan, and the north-western districts of India and the Himalaya. On the North American side of the Atlantic the fox reappears. With such an enormous geographical range the species must of necessity present itself under a considerable number of local phases, differing from one another to a greater or less degree in the matters of size and colouring. By some naturalists many of these local forms are regarded as specifically distinct, but it seems better and simpler to class them all as local phases or races of a single species primarily characterized by the white tip to the tail and the black or dark-brown hind surface of the ear. The “foxy red” colouring of the typical race of north-western Europe is too well known to require description. From this there is a more or less nearly complete gradation on the one hand to pale-coloured forms like the white-footed fox (V. alopex leucopus) of Persia, N.W. India and Arabia, and on the other to the silver or black fox (V. a. argentatus) of North America which yields the valuable silver-tipped black fur. Silver foxes apparently also occur in northern Asia.

To mention all the other local races would be superfluous, and it will suffice to note that the North African fox is known asV. a. niloticus, the Himalayan asV. a. montanus, the Tibetan asV. a. wadelli, the North American red or cross fox asV. a. pennsylvanicus, and the Alaskan asV. a. harrimani; the last named, like several other animals from Alaska, being the largest of its kind.

The cunning and stratagem of the fox have been proverbial for many ages, and he has figured as a central character in fables from the earliest times, as in Aesop, down to “Uncle Remus,” most notably as Reynard (Raginohardus, strong in counsel) in the great medieval beast-epic “Reynard the Fox” (q.v.). It is not unlikely that, owing to the conditions under which it now lives, these traits are even more developed in England than elsewhere. In habits the fox is to a great extent solitary, and its home is usually a burrow, which may be excavated by its own labour, but is more often the usurped or deserted tenement of a badger or a rabbit. Foxes will, however, often take up their residence in woods, or even in water-meadows with large tussocks of grass, remaining concealed during the day and issuing forth on marauding expeditions at night. Rabbits, hares, domesticated poultry, game-birds, and, when these run short, rats, mice and even insects, form the chief diet of the fox. When living near the coast foxes will, however, visit the shore at low water in search of crabs and whelks; and the old story of the fox and the grapes seems to be founded upon a partiality on the part of the creature for that fruit. Flesh that has become tainted appears to be specially acceptable; but it is a curious fact that on no account will a fox eat any kind of bird of prey.

After a gestation of from 60 to 65 days, the vixen during the month of April gives birth to cubs, of which from five to eight usually go to form a litter. When first born these are clothed with a uniform slaty-grey fur, which in due course gives place to a coat of more tawny hue than the adult livery. In a year and a half the cubs attain their full development; and from observations on captive specimens it appears that the duration of life ought to extend to some thirteen or fourteen years. In the care and defence of her young the vixen displays extraordinary solicitude and boldness, altogether losing on such occasions her accustomed timidity and caution. Like most other young animals, fox-cubs are exceedingly playful, and may be seen chasing one another in front of the mouth of the burrow, or even running after their own tails.

Young foxes can be tamed to a certain extent, and do not then emit the well-known odour to any great degree unless excited. The species cannot, however, be completely domesticated, and never displays the affectionate traits of the dog. It was long believed that foxes and dogs would never interbreed; but several instances of such unions have been recorded, although they are undoubtedly rare. When suddenly confronted in a situation where immediate escape is impossible, the fox, like the wolf, will not hesitate to resort to the death-feigning instinct. Smartness in avoiding traps is one of the most distinctive traits in the character of the species; but when a trap has once claimed its victim, and is consequently no longer dangerous, the fox is always ready to take advantage of the gratuitous meal.

Red fox-skins are largely imported into Europe for various purposes, the American imports alone formerly reaching as many as 60,000 skins annually. Silver fox is one of the most valuable of all furs, as much as £480 having been given for an unusually fine pair of skins in 1902.

Of foxes certainly distinct specifically from the typical representative of the group, one of the best known is the IndianVulpes bengalensis, a species much inferior in point of size to its European relative, and lacking the strong odour of the latter, from which it is also distinguished by the black tip to the tail and the pale-coloured backs of the ears. The corsac fox (V. corsac), ranging from southern Russia and the Caspian provinces across Asia to Amurland, may be regarded as a northern representative of the Indian species; while the pale fox (V. pallidus), of the Suakin and Dongola deserts, may be regarded as the African representative of the group. Possibly the kit-fox (V. velox), which has likewise a black tail-tip and pale ears, may be the North American form of the same group. The northern fennec (V. famelicus), whose range extends apparently from Egypt and Somaliland through Palestine and Persia into Afghanistan, seems to form a connecting link between the more typical foxes and the small African species properly known as fennecs. The long and bushy tail in the northern species has a white tip and a dark gland-patch near the root, but the backs of the ears are fawn-coloured. The enormous length of the ears and the small bodily size (inferior to that of any other member of the family) suffice to distinguish the true fennec (V. zerda) of Algeria and Egypt, in which the general colour is pale and the tip of the relatively short tail black. South of the Zambezi the group reappears in the shape of the asse-fox or fennec, (V. cama), a dark-coloured species, with a black tip to the long, bushy tail and reddish-brown ears.

Passing from South Africa to the north polar regions of both the Old and the New World, inclusive of Iceland, we enter the domain of the Arctic fox (V. lagopus), a very distinct species characterized by the hairy soles of its feet, the short, blunt ears, the long, bushy tail, and the great length of the fur in winter. The upper parts in summer are usually brownish and the under parts white; but in winter the whole coat, in this phase of the species, turns white. In a second phase of the species, the colour, which often displays a slaty hue (whence the name of blue fox), remains more or less the same throughout the year, the winter coat being, however, recognizable by the great length of the fur. Many at least of the “blue fox” skins of the fur-trade are white skins dyed. About 2000 blue fox-skins wereannually imported into London from Alaska some five-and-twenty years ago. Arctic foxes feed largely on sea-birds and lemmings, laying up hidden stores of the last-named rodents for winter use.

The American grey fox, or Virginian fox, is now generally ranged as a distinct genus (or a subgenus ofCanis) under the name ofUrocyon cinereo-argentatus, on account of being distinguished, as already mentioned, by the presence of a ridge of long erectile hairs along the upper surface of the tail and of a projection to the postero-inferior angle of the lower jaw. The prevailing colour of the fur of the upper parts is iron-grey.

The so-called foxes of South America, such as the crab-eating fox (C. thous), Azara’s fox (C. azarae), and the colpeo (C. magellanicus), are aberrant members of the typical genusCanis. On the other hand, the long-eared fox or Delalande’s fox (Otocyon megalotis) of south and east Africa represents a totally distinct genus.

See St George Mivart,Dogs, Jackals, Wolves and Foxes(London, 1890); R.I. Pocock, “Ancestors and Relatives of the Dog,” inThe Kennel Encyclopaedia(London, 1907). For fox-hunting, seeHunting.

(R. L.*)

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