208 EEMINISCENCES OF A HUNTSMAN. 



them. Oh, what commotion and yells it produced ! 

 with a shriek of terror they bolted one over the other 

 into the earth. The wind set from the paunch of the 

 rabbit direct into their home, — so I watched ; and not 

 a minute had elapsed before I descried a little picked 

 nose winding up into the air : it scented the viands, 

 and rushed to the feast. Cub after cub then came 

 out, and there was as much outcry in fighting to 

 obtain a portion of the rabbit as there was in the 

 terror occasioned by its sudden fall. From that time 

 these cubs were regularly fed, and, for all I know, 

 they were every one reared to maturity. This was 

 the largest litter I ever knew of, or heard mentioned. 

 People who are ignorant of the nature of the fox 

 might suppose it was a double litter, the offspring of 

 two vixen foxes, but it was not so ; but one brace of 

 foxes attended them, and they were the sire and dam. 

 In the whole course of my experience I never knew 

 two vixens in their wild and thoroughly natural state 

 lay up their cubs eveai near each other. A vixen, 

 Avhen she has a litter, keeps what may be called a 

 walk to herself; and if, as I proved in Bedfordshire, 

 an artificial litter of cubs is turned into a made earth 

 or faggot pile too near her, the wild vixen will kill or 

 worry them. A litter of foxes change their play- 

 grounds, and people often mistake the using of one 

 litter for that of two. 



Having observed that Mr. Wyndhara's hounds 

 stood on too much ceremony with their foxes, and 

 dreamed that 1 saw one of his hounds by accident 

 meet a fox in cover, when the pack had been running- 

 twenty minutes, and bow to him and beg his pardon 

 for being anywhere but behind him, I resolved se- 

 cretly to aid the pack; as, not being their huntsman, I 



