ABSTRACT
IT is only the meat of foxes and wolves that men reject, since these beasts are unclean by nature and prone to various diseases, especially rabies. 1 2 But the fox expels all its diseases and lengthens its life by eating the resin, or sap, from pines. Hence Ambrose says:‘The fox is an animal that is detestable for its pillaging and contemptible for its feebleness; it is incautious for its own safety, yet lays snares for other animals. However, it doctors itself with resin, and keeps the threat of death at a distance by this remedy.’ Pliny, in Bk VIII, states that the fox, an animal which also possesses particularly acute hearing, passes over congealed rivers and lakes in the hard-frozen wastes of Thrace when it wishes to search for food and to return afterwards; and it has been noted that it tries to ascertain the depth of the ice by putting its ear close to the surface. 2 nevertheless, it could never or seldom perform this natural guesswork on the glacial waters of the North, since the powerful frost appears suddenly and the ice becomes so thick, pressed down by a layer of fallen snow, that the animal would perish with hunger before it could find and recognize any sign that it is broken or breakable.
