LITTLE FOXES 145 



sprung up, and as we picked a small bunch, attention 

 was caught by a pad-mark in the soft earth. In the 

 yellow sand before the rock portal others were found, 

 and it was seen that here was to be the home of the 

 little foxes. Not many days later, when April was 

 just gliding into May, we heard the tiny whimper that 

 the cubs, usually so silent, make within a few hours of 

 birth. 



Be it understood that these are proper wild foxes in 

 a proper wild country. Their ancestors have not been 

 entered at the keeper's kindergarten, fed with shot 

 rabbits, moved into new earths before their own 

 instinct wills it, taught to use brick kennels, brought 

 up motherless, and turned down in new districts where 

 they still run after human beings and fawn upon them 

 like dogs for their food. Our greyhound foxes of the 

 rocks belong entirely to the soil. They yield to the 

 hounds more sport than brushes, and (the truth must 

 be told) have to be kept within bounds with an occa- 

 sional charge of shot from an infuriated poultry fancier. 

 We were therefore by no means on speaking terms with 

 our vixen, and could scarcely ask her to show us at 

 once her fluffy litter that whimpered so like kittens. 



In the gloaming of one evening we saw her leaping 

 in the long grass, chasing ineffectually a rabbit that we 

 could not see. She was but the spectre of a fox, her 

 legs seeming twice their usual length and her body 

 little more than backbone. She was far off, and only 

 seen as she passed between two bushes. We went no 

 nearer, but gave her silent good wishes in her import- 

 ant hunting. A far handsomer creature was the dog- 

 fox, who gathered himself from a hedge where we 

 looked for a rabbit a few evenings later. Well clothed 

 10 



