Nick Maclaren wrote:
In article ,
"Mike Lyle" writes:

My "Shit Book", aka Bang & Dahlstrom, _Collins Guide to Animal
Tracks and Signs_, agrees with Janet, saying fox droppings "are
sausage-shaped, usually 8-10 cm long and c. 2 cm across and with
a
spirally-twisted point at one end." If the dropping is broken up,
only one bit has the point. It makes no mention of lawns as a
likely
site, though it's possible if a fox has a regular path across a
particular lawn; in general they leave them on a slight
elevation,
allowing scent-marking to take better effect. Hedgehog droppings,
on
the other hand, usually have a point at one end, but there's no
mention of a twist. "The size is very variable, but on average
each
dropping is 3-4 cm long and 8-10 mm thick." "...they can be found
distributed at random on, for instance, lawns..." I infer that
fox
droppings are black only in autumn when they've been eating
berries,
while hedgehog ones are black all the year round.

The spiral twisting is not invariable, because it is caused by
there
being a lot of hair and feathers in it, and they are often (perhaps
usually) black, anyway. My difficulty is in telling a small fox
dropping from a large hedgehog one.

I see quite a lot of ones that are 5-7 cm long and c. 1.5 cm thick,
so you can see why I have the difficulty!

Hmm. I suppose in those cases one can only fall back on probability
based on location, unless the culprit's caught in the act of
committing a public nuisance. (Lowering the tone, I think of an
incident in Robert Graves's _Goodbye to All That_. A soldier was up
before the CO for "committing a nuisance" on the parade ground -- and
who among us hasn't briefly wanted to do that at one time or
another? -- and pleaded in defence having been caught short; the RSM
broke in, saying, "I hexamined the nuisance, sir, and it was done
with a heffort!")

--
Mike.