68 THE FOX. 



of the cub, finally running off together in order 

 to leave an unmistakable line to lead away the 

 intruder ! 



Early in the autumn, when the cubs have learnt 

 to hunt and to take care of themselves, the family 

 finally splits up, the fox and the vixen driving the 

 cubs out of the home-range, this being a natural 

 prevention of overstocking, which would result 

 in many enemies or in scarcity of food. Each cub 

 now sets off to seek his own fortune, and he 

 may travel for days ere he finally settles on a 

 range of his own. During this time of migra- 

 tion, while travelling restlessly from hill to hill, 

 from forest to forest, the cub invariably carries 

 something in his jaws. It may be an old sheep- 

 horn or the sole of a boot, or possibly it is the 

 last thing he killed a water-vole or even a frog. 

 Exactly what his idea is one cannot say, unless 

 it is that, feeling himself an emigrant, he is con- 

 strained by a desire to carry his worldly possessions 

 with him. More probably, however, the ruling 

 instinct is that of carrying a small store of food 

 lest, in his wanderings, he should encounter a 

 fruitless land and suffer hunger. 



Many foxes have little secret caches or hiding- 

 places, where they bury certain things which 

 happen to take their fancy. All manner of 

 strange oddments are buried here little things 

 the fox has picked up during a night's wanderings, 

 carried for an hour or two, then hidden with his 

 secret store, to be meditated over in leisure 

 hours. An old barrel mole-trap containing a dead 

 mole, a medicine -bottle which had held some 

 strange-smelling concoction, a bit of a slipper, 

 and an old dog-collar were found in one such 

 cache, which was located in the decaying root 



