306 Next to the Ground 



honey he stores there in what looks like a 

 cluster of waxen grapes. Fox cubs, which 

 are littered in early spring, are full grown by 

 October. They are frolic creatures, always 

 rolling each other over or tumbling about the 

 backs of indulgent parents. They come 

 boldly out of the den before they are even 

 steady upon their legs, and lie blinking in the 

 sun or spatting with dainty paws at the bits 

 of leaf the winds blow over. 



Old or young, foxes drink delicately. 

 They will wade a considerable creek to slake 

 thirst at the coldest spring within reach. 

 Once well rid of family cares even the sedate 

 mother fox is no more sedate. She sits in 

 the sun upon a hillside playing with her tail, 

 scolding and barking saucily at all the forest 

 folk in sight. Sometimes she plants herself 

 upon a rock jutting over a glassy pool, and 

 surveys her own image in the water, licking 

 her lips the while, and smoothing her coat 

 with every mark of self-satisfaction. While 

 suckling she lets herself go. At all other 

 times her coat is spick and span. But she is 

 far from a neat housekeeper. Possibly that 

 is the reason that she has half a dozen caves 

 of refuge all through the late summer and 

 fall also that she never rears the litter of 

 successive years in the same den. She will 

 scratch out a hole in a place exactly to her 



