264 THE BOOK OF THE ANIMAL KINGDOM 



she quite forgets the advertising business when bringing birds from 

 a distance, for feathers are strewn freely around, which makes 

 nothing more easy to be seen than an earth where cubs are present. 

 The slightest interference with a litter of cubs will often be the 

 means of causing the vixen to shift them. Sometimes this happens 

 as a result of a person merely walking over the earth ! Another 

 earth is generally in readiness not far away in the event of anything 

 turning up of a disturbing nature. Some vixens are constantly 

 shifting their cubs for no apparent reason, while others are reared 

 where they are born. 



I once knew of a vixen drawing an earth ready for cubs near the 

 boundary of an estate, the owner of which did not look on Foxes as 

 desirable visitors, much less as residents. For this reason the keeper 

 was anxious to shift her into an earth in the same wood which had 

 previously been occupied by Foxes as a breeding earth and on more 

 welcome ground. He took a Terrier and bolted her. The keeper 

 took the precaution to taint the earth thoroughly inside and out with 

 renardine, an offensive preparation which, the manufacturers say, 

 no Fox will approach ! He also well stopped the earth, but upon his 

 return the next morning he found she had torn it open and was 

 working freely. He tainted and stopped it up again, and this was 

 repeated every day for ten days, but eventually it had to be given 

 up, for, in spite of his efforts, she would persist in opening and 

 working the earth each night even after the cubs were born and she 

 had the chance to move them. This, of course, was a very exceptional 

 case, and proof of how far sometimes one vixen may deviate from 

 the general rule. 



Vixens do not often move their cubs during the first month of 

 their existence unless they are disturbed in some way. The means 

 the mother employs for their removal is by carrying them in her 

 mouth one at a time, just in the same way as a Cat would carry her 

 kitten. She can do this up to the time they are six weeks old. After 

 this they are able to follow her any reasonable distance. When 

 cubs are a month or six weeks old it is not unusual for the vixen to 

 distribute them into two or three different earths, probably two or 

 three in each, and sometimes these earths may be as far as a mile 

 apart, but more often quite close. Much depends on what there is 

 available. 



Vixens prove themselves very devoted mothers when the lives of 

 their youngsters are at stake, although there is little fear beyond 



