fox, oil on board, 2010, 20 x 15cm

“When it is hungry and can find nothing to eat, it rolls itself in red earth so that it seems to be stained with blood, lies on the ground and holds it breath, so that it seems scarcely alive. When birds see that it is not breathing … they think that it is dead and descend to perch on it. Thus it seizes them and devours them.”

The Aberdeen Bestiary, c.1200