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protect and preserve him ; particularly when by taking the little 

 trouble I have mentioned we can make him as inoffensive as a kitten, 

 and more so than a cat. 



Nothing is more interesting in its way than the sight of a vixen 

 tending her cubs. On a fine day she brings them out of the earth 

 and plays with them as a bitch does with her puppies; but at the 

 least sign of danger she and the youngsters disappear. As they grow 

 older and hardier she teaches them to tear up their food, and 

 will bring home a half -killed crow or rabbit to furnish an object 

 lesson, and see then how the little fellows growl and fight over the 

 prey ! Finally she brings them out at night, and shows them all the 

 earths and places in the vicinity where they can go to ground in 

 moments of danger. As soon as the cubs can take care of themselves 

 she leaves them to do so. 



A litter was once brought out near my house. I took great delight in 

 watching the cubs morning and ev-ening, and repeatedly saw the vixen, 

 after a game of romps, hunt in the young ones before going off herself 

 on a foray ; but no sooner were they driven in than they would re- 

 appear and try to follow her. Then she would regularly cuflf them 

 with her paw, and even bite them, and, having sent them back to bed, 

 would remain about the earth till she saw they were not likely to 

 come out again. 



Vixens, though such cunning animals, often lay up their cubs in 

 most exposed and dangerous places. I have known one to breed three 

 years in succession in the old flue of a greenhouse. When a litter 

 is found to be in a dangerous place it should be carefully disturbed, 

 and the mother will then move her family to safer quarters. Some- 

 times a vixen will have two nurseries, Avhich she will use alternately, 

 and, seeing the marks at both, a keeper often calculates upon having 

 two litters instead of one. If cubs be laid up near to a dwelling- 

 house, the vixen very often becomes extremely vicious, and will 

 attack women and children even without being molested by them. 

 But, strange to say, she will not take poultry from that place, nor will 

 she allow the cubs when they get hardy to do similar damage. 

 Another of the many instances of the craftiness of the species. 



A great many people think that there is little or nothing to be 

 done about hunting from the "last day of the season" till the 

 following cubhunting. They are very wrong in such ideas. The 

 day after the last of the season is the first of the next with the Master 

 and Hunt servants, and so it should he with country gentlemen ovming 

 or living near fox coverts. 



Vixens lay ujd generally between early March and May, during 

 which time, and until the cubs get hardy, they require careful looking 

 after, both to prevent their being worried and to have them well fed. 

 If a vixen finds plenty of food laid for her near where she has her 

 cubs she will not visit hen roosts or do damage, neither will she have 

 occasion to leave the cubs in search of food, but can stay at home and 



