120 THE RING OF NATURE 



summer industriously covers with green blades as 

 fast as they are renewed. The rabbits are 

 responsible for nearly all of them, and perhaps as 

 much as the fox for this particular one. 



The grass of the little amphitheatre is gemmed 

 with flowers, still mostly of the yellow of spring, 

 nor should I be able to see in this half-light the 

 bugle, the prunella and other beauties in blue and 

 purple. The purple orchis, however, is visible 

 enough as it lifts here and there its pink-purple 

 ' bloody man's thumb ' through the lush grass. 

 The bush on my left is happily of hawthorn, and 

 the cream of its bloom is as clear as the almond 

 scent that is refined and sweetened by the approach 

 of night. A blackbird perches in an ash overhead 

 and sings his clear, fluty melody. He might be 

 the orchestra of the piece for, while he sings, behold 

 there is a little fox on the mound before the hole. 



He did not come. He simply appeared. He was 

 not there, and then he was there, a goodly little 

 fox nearly as large as a full-grown rabbit, no longer 

 looking, as he did when younger yet, like a little 

 chow-chow puppy, but now in fairly exact 

 miniature of his parents. 



The first time I saw him thus, I knew him to be 

 the largest of his litter, and beyond reasonable 

 doubt a dog. In his mother's absence, he has the 

 guardianship of his brothers and sisters, and every 

 evening he comes first out from the den to sniff the 

 air and see if all is well. Now he skips a little 

 and whisks back into the crack, to tumble out 



