Fox trot

 

     In the nearly 25 years I've lived in Northbrook, my yard has been visited by coyote and deer, hawks and owls, even a pair of puddle-paddling ducks, who took up residence in wet weather.
     But never a fox. I heard one once — rather, heard the screams of the rabbits I assumed were being slaughtered by a fox. And seen a few down the block over the years. But Sunday one showed up in the backyard, in broad daylight. Alas, none of the photos I snapped were as clear as the image he, or she, presented, strolling along First Avenue. Trees kept getting in the way.
     "Maybe he'll polish off some squirrels before he leaves," I said to the wife. We have been plagued by squirrels this winter, pushing the birds aside and shimmying into the feeder. The old defenses don't work. I think the things are learning.

     Back to foxes, which I had never really considered before. For a moment, I couldn't quite place where in the animal kingdom foxes belong. Are they relatives of dogs? Or maybe cats — they do have a certain, sleek, feline quality. 

     No, not with that snout. They must be doggish, a hunch the Encyclopedia Britannica quickly confirms in its "Dogs" entry: "All dogs belong to the family Canidae, along with their relatives — wolves, jackals, and foxes." Even then, they don't quite belong to that trio, do they? Foxes have a quality wolves and jackals lack — a sympathy, their famous cunning maybe. Wolves are hungry, coyotes mangy, foxes sly. Though physically, the Britannica sets foxes apart this way: "Perhaps the most distinctive feature of the fox family, as compared with wolves and coyotes, is the eyes. They are yellow with elliptical pupils. all other canids, including dogs, have round pupils." 

     Didn't get close enough to look into the fox's eyes, which is probably a good thing.

     Foxes are solitary creatures — they do not travel in packs, and are monogamous. The OED ends its definition with this curious line, "Preserved in England and elsewhere as a beast of the chase" as if being hunted were somehow elemental to the species. More likely it's elemental to a dwindling crumb of the British upper crust.

     Here is where I would normally plunge into the etymology of "fox." There certainly are enough slang usages, related to cleverness, of course, to drunkenness, to swords. The foxtrot dance is not named after the animal, but vaudevillian Harry Fox. 

     Though the only definition that really caught my interest, as a book lover, is "foxing" — the brown spots on the pages of old books. There is an unusual related definition in the OED: "slang. An artificial sore" citing an 1862 sentence: "Daring youths were constantly in the habit of making 'foxes' (artificial sores)." Which raises the question, "Why?" Plague envy? Though it's safe to blame fashion, with a fox being a variety of fake beauty mark. 

     Back in the 1970s, "foxy" was a term of appreciation for feminine beauty. Even though it was endorsed by as revered an arbitrator of cool as Jimi Hendrix, with his song "Foxy Lady," I seem to recall being of the opinion that actually using the word, sincerely, reflected poorly upon the speaker, tarring him as being out of it, maybe even ridiculous.. Or maybe it was just one of those things I could never imagine myself saying under any circumstance. In the "Wild and Crazy Guys" sketch that Steve Martin and Dan Aykroyd played on "Saturday Night Live," the hilariously enthusiastic and clueless Festrunk Brothers have a particular affection for the word. "That fox bar was really something tonight!"  

    The fox poked around, then quickly vanished, a dynamic I will emulate today.