12 



THE LIFE OF A FOX 



strength to crawl with safety to any httle distance 

 round our nest. Had I earUer possessed the use 

 of sight, I might have strayed beyond my warm 

 shelter, and for want of sufficient strength to return 

 to it, have perished with cold. Thus Nature goes 

 on to care for us. I had two brothers and two 

 sisters, and we all throve and grew rapidly with the 

 nourishment of our mother's milk alone, until we 

 were six weeks old, when she began to supply us 

 with other food, such as rabbits, and rats and mice, 

 which she tore to pieces and divided amongst us in 

 equal shares, not however so much to our satis- 

 faction as to prevent our snarhng and quarrelling 

 with each other thus early over our meals. That 

 part of the earth where we lodged was between two 

 and three feet square, with several passages just 

 large enough for our mother to crawl along ; several 

 of these crossed each other, and of two that termin- 

 ated outwards one only was used by our mother, 

 who stopped up the other for times of emergency. 

 In these several passages we daily amused ourselves 

 with chasing each other round and round. On one 

 occasion we were interrupted in the midst of our 

 gambols by the sudden entrance of our mother, 

 who seized us with her sharp teeth, and carried us 

 to the back of the earth. It seemed that she had 



