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Riga 12:
:''People often ask why I chose to work with foxes. Generally I reply that this species offers the best of many worlds: the thrill of observing behaviour rarely seen before, the satisfaction of the intellectual wrestle to explain why evolution has worked each nuance of design into these remarkable creatures, and the conviction that this new knowledge will be useful, contributing to the solutions of problems as grand as rabies and as small (but annoying) as the beheading of a barnyard fowl. This reply is honest, and the arguments underlying it are robust. However, to give another answer, no less important: I study foxes because I am still awed by their extraordinary beauty, because they outwit me, because they keep the wind and rain on my face, and because they lead me to the satisfying solitude of the countryside; all of which is to say – because it's fun.'' (p. 15)
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:''Outwitting foxes has stretched man's ingenuity for at least 2,000 years. [...] Perhaps themthen, thousands of generations of persecution (especially when the opposition resorts to dirty tricks like marinading cats in urine) have fashioned foxes with their almost uncanny abilities to avoid man and his devices.'' (p. 16)
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:''Reynard is a fox who has had a greater influence upon European culture and perceptions than any other wild creature. He adorns the spandrels of mediaeval churches from Birmingham to Bucharest, leers from the pages of psalters, and has triumphed as an evil genius in more than a millennium of epic poems and bestiaries. He thrives in contemporary children's stories and has infiltrated our languages and thus our perception of his wild cousings: there is hardly a language in Europe in which the word "foxy" is not synonymous with trickery and deceit.'' (p. 32)