WHEN ALL THE WORLD IS YOUNG 121 



again followed by four other little foxes. They 

 do not stop to look at the evening, but one is 

 pushed head-over-heels down the hill, another 

 pins him by the throat. Presently two others are 

 standing up and wrestling like Cornishmen, and 

 soon after, two chasing one another round the 

 hawthorn pass within two yards of my out- 

 stretched boot. Between whiles, they take a 

 momentary rest on the steep of their den, and 

 then they often all look together in a particular 

 direction. Luckily it is not my direction, for they 

 are looking towards the quarter whence their 

 mother should come. If she saw me as she came 

 up, there would be no more games to-night, and 

 to-morrow, perhaps, the little foxes would be 

 located elsewhere. 



Here she comes up the hedge, with something in 

 her mouth. The rabbits that she meets on her 

 way make no effort to get more than just out of 

 her way. They seem to know that she is not in 

 hunting mood ; moreover, it is very seldom that 

 the vixen levies toll on her near neighbours. Often 

 the rabbits will continue to inhabit the side passages 

 of a burrow that the vixen has chosen for laying 

 down her whelps. 



She has brought them a small rabbit, or it may 

 be a rat or a young squirrel. In this time of 

 young things it is mostly the young that suffer. 

 And now the little kittens of foxes are changed to 

 raging demons. They fling themselves on the 

 quarry and pull at it in five directions, growling 



