Following fox trails of depressed vegetation, I found myself in a curling labyrinth spanning all different directions I knew not where. In his classib book Walden, Henry Thoreau once wrote about the trail of a fox: “ Now I am curious to know what had determined its graceful curvatures, its greater or lesser spaces and distinctness, and how they were coincident with the fluctuations of some mind, why they lead me two steps to the right, and then tree to the left. The frozen pond was his journal, and last night’s snow made a tabula rasa for him. The swiftest step leaves a lasting trace.”

The linear trail of a fox, putting one step in front of the other.

I heard from local field biologists that there were foxes denning in polyvinyl chloride (PVC) pipes next to the Guggenhiem castle in the Sands Point Preserve. I did not find their home, but came upon something more interesting.

There were a dozen cinder blocks line up, each with two holes. The fox had scat fastidiously in each. Clam shells, fur and bones, bittersweet berries, and other seeds illuminate the fox’s diet. Perhaps the motive is cultural.Thoreau wrote, “Sometimes I heard the foxes as they ranged over the snow-crust, in moonlight  illuminate the fox’s diet. Perhaps the motive is cultural. Thoreau wrote, “Sometimes I heard the foxes as they ranged over the snow-crust, in moonlight nights, in search of a partridge or other game, barking raggedly and demoniacally like forest dogs, as if laboring with some anxiety, or seeking expression, struggling for light and to be dogs outright and run freely in the streets; for if we take the ages into our account, may there not be a civilization going on among brutes as well as men?” Who knows, maybe the scat in the cinder blocks and the fastidiousness with which it was deposited is a sign of the foxes’ civilization.