58 FOXES AT HOME. 



the middle of the ride and huddled up together 

 in the sun. The very tiniest little things they 

 were too, and as they looked half starved I sat 

 and watched them (as they were on one of the 

 most frequented rides in the forest where horses 

 and dogs might have passed by at any moment, 

 and how they had escaped till then seemed a 

 miracle) whilst the keeper went to fetch a 

 rabbit, and having shot an old doe heavy in 

 young, the first he came across, we quickly 

 paunched her and, giving the unborn young a 

 slit with a knife, threw them still warm on the 

 little pile of cubs. The change was instanta- 

 neous ! The little innocent-looking creatures of 

 a moment before became suddenly transformed 

 into struggling demons, and they worried the 

 little rabbits just like a pack of hounds breaking 

 up their fox, and growled and fiew at each other 

 till the last particle had vanished, when they 

 sniffed about for more. After we had given 

 them a real good meal we put them back into 

 the rabbit burrow, and watched till evening, 

 when to our joy the vixen came up and took 

 them away into the heather with her, the little 

 mites which we thought could hardly crawl 

 running along with her like so many little 



