CUBDOM. 49 



this time of the year, persist in getting into his 

 eyes and ears and under his cap, so that they must 

 be brushed off, and to remain still is absolutely 

 impossible, he is detected at once ; the vixen 

 disappears with the cubs into the earth, and all 

 is over for that night, and he had better keep 

 away from the vicinity of the earth for the 

 next few nights, as vixens are sometimes, very 

 suspicious, and she may possibly shift the cubs 

 elsewhere to some earth where it will be 

 impossible to view them. 



Long before the cubs can be seen actually 

 outside the earth they come to the mouth of 

 the hole to play or bask in the sun ; one can then 

 see their tiny claw-marks in the sand. When 

 cubs are very young their claws stick out like 

 those of an angry cat, and as they then walk on 

 their toes the whole ground where they play and 

 crawl about looks as if it had been scratchell 

 over with a small iron rake with teeth like nails. 

 As they grow bigger, however, the claws 

 sink back into the foot and almost entirely 

 disappear, and this is one of the chief 

 distinguishing points between the track of 

 a small terrier and the ''pad" (or footmark) 

 of a fox. You can always see the print 



