What a Press this animal is getting. And what a political fuss it is making in Britain - nearly as much as that given to the sacked hereditary peers. It is the fox, of course, and even in the suburbs of south Dublin, writes a correspondent, the mating cry of male and female may be heard now. It comes in two versions: a bark and a banshee-like wailing. It does seem that the days of Britain's riders in red coats and their packs of hounds in pursuit of, in Wilde's words, "the uneatable" may be coming to an end. Some mourn the end of pageantry in the countryside. Even to those who care nothing for the hunting ceremonial, the fox is one of the most intriguing of animals. Our south Dublin correspondent notes its opportunism. Just now the badgers are lying low in their setts. No longer coming to the nightly offering of peanuts and bread and other tasty bits. The fox, in its rounds, takes up the slack. It has a fairly broad spread to its diet, but this week a new item came into the picture: sausages - moreover, special sausages for foxes. It is all part of a survey across the water carried out by BBC Wildlife Magazine and the Mammal Society. Volunteers will have one-kilometre squares in their area chosen by the organisers, and then are asked to collect all the scats or droppings within a two-to-four week period, noting where they were found. "Don't worry, we will tell you how to collect them in a way that is clean and odourless." To those currently feeding wild foxes, "we have a machine that produces sausages that are irresistible to foxes and contain small, harmless coloured plastic chips". These will be collected promptly. All in a full-page ad in the January issue of the magazine.
But Brer Fox, as he is called in the Uncle Remus stories of the Black South of the USA, loses out to Brer Rabbit. Summed up in the story where Brer Rabbit, at last falls into the hands (paws) of Brer Fox, his enemy. "Whatever you do, Brer Fox, don't throw me into a briar bush," pleads the rabbit. Brer Fox thinks long. This must be the worst he can inflict on his enemy. So, into the thickest briar bush he can find, he flings the poor rabbit. After a few minutes comes a triumphant cry from a nearby hillock, as Brer Rabbit plucks a leaf or two from his ears. "Born and bred in a briar bush, Brer Fox. Born and bred in a briar bush," he jeers and hops off. The underdog black man's version, as told by Uncle Remus.