no FOXES AT HOME. 



dead ; it was in an out-of-the-way spot, too, where 

 no dog was Hkely to disturb the Htter. The 

 vixen immediately shifted to another earth half 

 a mile or more distant, and, after a few days, 

 another of her cubs was picked up there, killed 

 in the same manner. I think this must have 

 been done by a dog fox. The fact, however, 

 remains, that something will occasionally kill 

 the cubs, and 1 am convinced it is not their 

 parents. There are no badgers in the neigh- 

 bourhood or I should have felt inclined to 

 suspect them, though badgers and foxes are 

 often known to live together in peace and con- 

 tentment. 



Talking of badgers, I once went on a badger 

 hunting expedition into the mountains of Galway, 

 to endeavour to obtain a few of these animals 

 for turning down in a very large wood where the 

 fox earths were becoming disused, and full of 

 leaves and rubbish, the foxes seeming to have 

 deserted what, at one time, had been their 

 favourite breeding places, old badger earths, 

 this latter animal having been for many years 

 extinct in our immediate neighbourhood. 



Having enlisted the services of a Galway 

 mountaineer, who said he could '' show ' my 



