Foxes are nocturnal omnivores and so may possibly eat melons, but more likely prey on all sorts of rodents…these elements refer to a「hairy animal with cucumber」and not vegetation: foxes are canids. Male FOXES are known as dogs, tods, or reynards, and females as VIXENS…fox spirits encountered in Chinese and Japanese tales and legends are usually females and appear as virginal, young, beautiful girls, FOXY LADIES. Foxes are especially well-known for being CUNNING (a group of foxes are called a 'skulk' in English), and in China cucumber melons are euphemistic of a female human losing her virginity (masturbating using a cucumber dildo), suggestive of cunning by some or all parties involved in that presumably once-in-a-lifetime event, particularly the virginal, young, beautiful female. As told in Japanese myths and legends, foxes are purported to enjoy eating deep-fried tōfu, hence that food association, and deep-fried tōfu slices are still offered at inari shrines in Japan, those having the spirits of foxes as deities…deep-fried tōfu is the proverbial「bean」(豆) that has been milked, curdled, and then boiled in oil.
In English, the etymology of CUNNING is from「to have learned, to be knowing, to have carnal knowledge.」Some have suggested that the shape and texture of a thin sheet of deep-fried tōfu (boiled in seething heated fluids) is related to a CUNNING vixen, a foxy girl who can deceive clients time and again by appearing to be an undeflowered virgin (a「hairy animal's melon」) even though having a great deal of experience and beyond puberty, due to her hymen resembling a thin sheet of deep-fried tōfu with that same level of elasticity and texture, someone able to sell her deflowering time and time again to foolish male clients. It has been suggested that the right element at one time may have been 'claw' rather than「cucumber melon」since foxes are the only canids that can retract claws, hence hide their CUNNING. A hymen hides a CUNNY, a 17th century British diminutive word for 'cunt'…「hairy animal with cucumber」may simply refer to a pubescent girl giving herself a selfie in her beaver. Beavers are rodents, foxes eat small beaver when they can get it.
Cunning females likened to a skulk of foxes and sheets of moist fried oily tōfu who prefer one another or dildoes over actual dog meat, as do most bonobos and our human ancestors some of the time:
「Sometimes females would rather GG-rub [genital-to-genital] with each other than copulate with a male. Parish filmed a 15-minute scene at a bonobo colony at the San Diego Wild Animal Park in which a male, Vernon, repeatedly solicited two females, Lisa and Loretta. Again and again he arched his back and displayed his erect penis—the bonobo request for sex. The females moved away from him, tactfully turning him down until they crept behind a tree and GG-rubbed with each other.」
[ https://www.discovermagazine.com/mind/casual-sex-play-common-among-bonobos 2023-05-14 ]
Without a doubt, the Irish also have knowledge of their own to pass along in these trying times:「Masturbation will not spread coronavirus, especially if you wash your hands (and any sex toys) with soap and water for at least 20 seconds before and after.」Nonetheless and regrettably, unlike in dynastic China, it must be undertaken alone to truly be a preventative countermeasure but still achieve the desired result with some degree of safety.
[ https://www.sexualwellbeing.ie/sexual-health/sex-and-coronavirus/ 2020-03-31 ]
The Dutch, too have the same solution—it seems masturbation has become mainstream in the media the world over due to the coronavirus (it has always been 'the main stream' in reality, albeit covertly for most folks):
「'Don't have sex with your partner if they have been isolated because of (suspected) coronavirus infection,' the RVIM says. 'Sex with yourself or with others at a distance is possible (think of telling erotic stories, masturbating together).'」
[ https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/may/15/dutch-official-advice-to-single-people-find-a-sex-buddy-for-lockdown-coronavirus 2020-05-16 ]
Needless to point out perhaps, but Chinese shamans from antiquity hit upon the same solution as a pandemic preventative countermeasure, honed for ultimate client satisfaction by utilizing naked females with no-longer-integrated feet as masturbatory sex buddies available for short-term rental with erotic visualization of live prepubescent female genitalia engaging in autoerotic stimulation herself, as a solution to the same problem facing us now, but in pre-Internet days.

External source definitions …excluding politically incorrect concepts and other meanings deemed offensive today; may include extended definitions, euphemisms, and mnemonics)
Chinese: fox
Japanese EDRDG: fox
Unihan extended: species of fox