The Fox 103 
interesting from another point of view, besides that 
of the hunter—they are the homes of the foxes. 
Here, during the springtime, on a soft bed of grass 
and leaves the fox babies are born. They are lively 
little fellows, varying in number from three to seven. 
So rapidly do they grow that the amount of labor 
expended in procuring food for them is great. The 
parent foxes must hunt day and night. At such times 
the female becomes daring, and has even been known 
to invade farmyards and capture poultry in the day- 
time. 
I have become acquainted with several fox families, 
and very much have I enjoyed their friendship. All 
but one of these families were allowed to rear their 
young; the exception being in the case of a pair so 
destructive that they were dug out, and the young 
kept as pets. I wish to speak in particular of this 
family, not that they differed so much from others, 
but because I knew them better. 
It was in an open pasture, during the first week in 
May, that I discovered their den. During the spring 
four or five hens had mysteriously disappeared, and 
one day I saw a fox not far from the barn. There 
was nothing remarkable in this except. that the fox 
was the darkest in color I had ever seen, outside the 
black species. The disappearance of the hens was 
