472 THE BRITISH NATURE BOOK 



two at a time, one in his mouth and the other between his forepaws and his chest. 

 On days when he cannot get to the river he is content with a tank which is 

 nearer home ; and here, as the photograph shows, he enjoys himself under the tap 

 or indulging in make-believe fishing with a ball. 



Then, when the bath is over, he accompanies us for a walk. Generally he keeps 

 quite close to his mistress, paddling along at a good trotting pace on his short legs ; 

 but occasionally he dives into the bushes or under the laurels for a momentary hunt. 



He is wonderfully obedient, and comes readily at call ; he hates coming home, 

 and yet, when the door is opened, it is but seldom that he has to be picked up and 

 placed inside his cage ; with that silence which is his marked feature, though at 

 this moment wistful and pathetic, he looks at his mistress, finds her adamant, 

 and quietly leaps the threshold to his prison for the night. 



He has wonderful fur, very thick and very loose you may pick him up anywhere 

 by it and find him, as it were, loose inside. When he emerges from the water he 

 looks very wet and draggled, but within a few minutes the fur is perfectly dry again. 

 He has no objection to being handled, though he may pretend to bite ; in fact, 

 his tail makes a convenient handle, and he offers no objection to being swung 

 by it. 



So far he has shown no signs of desiring to return to the wild, but we wonder 

 sometimes whether the day will come when Paddy will hear that irresistible call of 

 Nature, and dive into the river, never to come back. 



No. 2. VICKY, THE FOX. 



I confess that to me the most eerie and weird of all the sounds of wild life in 

 England is the cry of the fox at night. The owls' voices are creepy enough in the 

 distance, and horribly disturbing if close to, and the " churr " of the nightjar is 

 strange and bewildering ; but these are birds, not beasts ; and of the latter the fox 

 is practically the only wild animal to be heard at night, and he only raises his voice 

 during the spring. I shall never forget the thrill that passed deliciously through me 

 when, as a town-bred boy, I went to stay at a farm in the country, and the very first 

 night, as we stood in the dark at the door, there came to us across the hills the solitary 

 barking of a fox. Akin, in imagination, to the howls of wolves or hyenas in foreign 

 lands, the sound never ceases to bring home to me the joyous thought that in 

 spite of modern civilization there is still some real wild life left in this old England 

 of ours. 



I notice that books say that the fox does not howl, and beyond a subdued 

 whine, has no other note but the short bark ; but I have heard a fox howl at close 

 quarters in much the same manner as a chained dog at night. The fox was my 

 quondam friend Vicky. 



Vicky's mother had the effrontery to enlarge a rabbit burrow in a private 

 ground close to the garden, not a hundred yards away from the house. The result 

 was inevitable. The burrow was opened and four tiny cubs were found. Three of 

 them were sent to other parts of the country to be turned down there, when old 

 enough ; but Vicky was begged from the owner for a pet. 



I do not know how old he was when he became a member of the household, 

 but certainly not more than a few days ; for he was still blind, and fox cubs do not 

 open their eyes till the tenth day. For two or three weeks he had to be fed with 



