loo FOXES AT HOME. 



which you catch animals aHve, were set at the 

 earth, baited with a savoury rabbit's paunch, but 

 it took a week to catch them all. There were 

 three in each lot — one lot very small, poor, 

 miserable little things, all vixens, the other 

 three two dogs and a vixen — and we made away 

 with them. Whilst the keeper was taking one 

 of the strongest cubs, which evidently belonged 

 to the healthier vixen, out of the trap in the grey 

 of the morning it kicked up a frightful row, 

 when suddenly down dashed a huge dog fox 

 through the heath and thick fir trees, with all 

 his hackles up, and danced round him, evidently 

 thinking something was ill-using the cubs. 

 This shows that foxes will fight in defence of 

 their young. Though a magnificent large fox, 

 almost the largest I have ever seen I think, he 

 too was mangy, and the keeper shot him there 

 and then, and we were lucky to have got him ; 

 but the poor brute deserved a better death. 

 The dog which came up to the first earth we 

 never saw again. 



All the old earths were now destroyed, six 

 brace of fresh cubs (eight vixens) turned down, 

 from which we had two litters the following 

 year. And we have never had a mangy fox or 



