52 HOW HE LAUGHS AT THE SOW. 



piece of wood from his mouth, and coiling himself upon the 

 top of the stump, remained motionless as if dead. 



" At the approach of evening, an old sow and her pro- 

 geny, five or six in number, issued from a neighbouring 

 thicket, and pursuing their usual track, passed near to the 

 stump in question. Two of her sucklings followed some- 

 what behind the rest, and just as they neared his ambush, 

 Michel, with the rapidity of thought, darted down from 

 his perch upon one of them, and in the twinkling of an eye 

 bore it in triumph on to the fastness he had so providently 

 prepared beforehand. 



" Confounded at the shrieks of her offspring, the old sow 

 returned in fury to the spot, and until late in the night made 

 repeated desperate attempts to storm the murderer's strong- 

 hold ; but the fox took the matter very coolly, and devoured the 

 pig under the very nose of its mother, who at length with 

 the greatest reluctance, and without being able to revenge 

 herself on her crafty adversary, was forced to beat a retreat." 



The notion is very generally entertained, in Sweden, that 

 the fox seldom commits serious depredations in the vicinity 

 of his breeding-place ; arguing, it is presumed, that were he 

 to thieve at home, the hue and cry would sooner be raised 

 against him. It is moreover said, that he often makes a 

 distinction between the property of the owner of the soil 

 where his earth is situated, and that of others. 



" For a long period," says Ekstrom, " a brace of foxes 

 annually bred in a little wooded knoll near to where I was 

 born ; and although my father was a very keen sportsman, 

 he never molested them in any way, nor would he per- 

 mit me to injure them. The consequence was, that during 

 a space of twenty years not a single head of poultry was car- 



