Apparently, it was told about C. F. Gauss that "He is like the fox, who effaces his tracks in the sand", because of his elliptic style of exposition. In fact, he liked to write down only very polished results, without explaining how he found them.

An informative discussion about the quote above his here:

https://hsm.stackexchange.com/questions/3610/what-is-the-original-source-for-abels-quote-about-gausshe-is-like-the-fox-wh

Apparently, it was told about C. F. Gauss that "He is like the fox, who effaces his tracks in the sand", because of his elliptic style of exposition. In fact, he liked to write down only very polished results, without explaining how he had found them.

An informative discussion about the quote above his here:

https://hsm.stackexchange.com/questions/3610/what-is-the-original-source-for-abels-quote-about-gausshe-is-like-the-fox-wh