everything suffered, and most of all perhaps the herbage. The thrift and white campion that covered the ledges, the ferns that found root-hold in the crannies and crevices of the rocks, and the stone-crop and lichens growing on the rocks themselves, drooped and withered; and at last the boggy ground above the drinking-place caked and dried, so that the reeds turned yellow, and rattled rather than swished when the night wind stirred them. Under the scorching sun the thread of water shrank and shrank until it dripped drop by drop, and finally dried up altogether. At my last visit to the drinking-place the smooth basin was hot with the fierce rays, and the moss about the edge of the rock above was nearly as moistureless as the crinkled lichen on the pinnacles.

In these conditions it was impossible to remain where we were, and that night my mother reluctantly decided to abandon our home and to lead us up the cliff. Would that she had taken us the moment the stars showed, instead of waiting until deep night; for the delay nearly proved fatal to us all. A fox's life is so short that he cannot forget even the groundless scares his fears make him the victim of, so it is not to be wondered at that the events of the night I am about to describe are almost as vivid to me still as at the time they happened.

My sisters had returned once more from the dried-up basin to which they had been some five or six times since sunset, and joined me where I lay near the mouth of the earth, waiting for the dew to fall and listening for the footsteps of the vixen who had gone to get ready the new lair. It was a beautiful night—the sea calm, and the surf about the reef alight with phosphorescence, whilst the furze-bushes and the clump of brambles near the reeds were dotted with glow-worms. There was even a solitary one on the drooping bracken above the entrance. A wind of summer strength stirred the withered herbage and murmured around the precipitous crags above our heads, but, save the boom from the great cave below when the tide rose, all was still. Suddenly, without warning of any kind, there came a flash of light from the cliffs above the sandy cove where we had eaten the jelly-fish. It died away and then returned, more brightly than before. It was not nearly so fierce as the lines of fire I had seen zigzagging the black sky on the afternoon of the heavy rain, nor was there any thunder with it as then, but there was a strange, crackling noise, as of animals crunching bones.

Immediately flames leapt in great tongues from the brambly thicket beyond the reeds. These drove us to the den; and there we crouched listening to the awful sound, which grew louder and louder. Soon a faint glare lit up a part of the earth as far in as the spot where two rocks narrowed the tunnel. Before this I was on the point of bolting; but now fear seized my limbs and I could not rise, could only crouch closer and closer to the earth like my sisters. Whilst we lay there huddled together and crying out for the vixen she returned, darkening the tunnel as she came towards us. Scarcely had she joined us when an evil-smelling fog rolled in, causing us to keep our muzzles close to the ground. Then the fire swept past the earth, lighting it up to the end where we lay. Panic-stricken though I was, I remember noticing how the smooth floor gleamed, and how curiously the light glowed on the vixen's fur. Suddenly the heat became less intense, and a current of fresh air entering the earth revived us as we lay panting at the point of suffocation.

The crackling and roar of the flames had long died away before we dared to quit our sanctuary, and when at last we ventured to the mouth of the earth, what a sight met our gaze! Our playground was charred, except for a narrow strip near its edge, and towards this a thin line of fire moved slowly, blotting out the criss-cross tracks we had worn between the boulders. A ring of sparks encircled the raven's perch, and crept higher and higher, consuming the lichen, and leaving bare rock in its train; where the brambles had stood was a heap of glowing ash; grasses and reeds had disappeared; in short, the place which had been our little world and of which we knew every blade and spray, was as nearly past recognition as a corn-field after harvest. Away towards the west great ruddy flames leapt from the furze brake and lit up sky and sea and headland with such a lurid light as I had never seen; whilst on the near slopes a hundred smaller fires flickered and died, to blaze again and re-illuminate the great piles of bared rock. Sparks falling from above showed that the ivy round the home of the magpies had not escaped; and as the birds had mobbed me most unmercifully that very day, I rejoiced in their misfortune.

The vixen, satisfied at last that she might venture forth, took up my puny sister, who was then unable to stand, and set out for the steep path by which she usually reached the top of the cliff. My other sister and I trod closely on her heels as she picked her way over the heated ground and skirted the glowing remains of the furze-bushes. In the ascent my pads were rather badly burnt and my fore-legs singed by a fire which suddenly broke out in some smouldering heather into which they sank. The glimpse I got of the face of the precipice showed that the ivy had lost all its leaves, the bared stems standing out plainly against the black fissures that seamed the great wall of rock besprinkled with sparks which in their fall resembled shooting stars.

When we reached the summit we could hear the magpies calling out, but, to do them justice, they were not mobbing us then. Once beyond the blackened ground we ranged up one on each side of the vixen, and after crossing fields of stubble and turnips and getting far beyond the reek of the burning, we caught the scene of the brook for which she was making. We struck it where it wound through marshy ground on the outskirts of a furze brake, and in a trice were up to our bellies in the delicious cool stream with our tongues hard at work. The water was cold and sweet; there was plenty of it, and we lapped and lapped as long as we could take in a drop. In all my life I never again enjoyed a drink like that, and the mud that stuck to my legs seemed to soothe the pain of the burns.

My little sister was able to follow us now without assistance, but the vixen, who was exhausted with carrying her so far, went at a walking pace between the stems of the furze and kept looking back to see that she was keeping up with us, though she took no notice whatever of my other sister who was going on three legs, or of myself whose poor feet were so tender that I hardly dared touch the ground.

Emerging from the furze we came upon a circle of turf, where we caught sight of at least a dozen rabbits scurrying to the holes that honey-combed the ground at the foot of a high cairn. One of these had been enlarged, as the heap of fresh earth showed, and into it the vixen led us to a dry and sweet-smelling den, where she left us, to procure food. In there it seemed as still as death to us who had had the roar of the sea in our ears all our lives, but the lair was very comfortable, and roomy enough for us to stand side by side whilst the vixen distributed the rabbit she presently brought us. We found, too, on curling ourselves up, that, big as we were, we could lie close together without trespassing on the tunnel as we had latterly done in the cliff earth. So, as we were thoroughly weary, we soon forgot the dangers we had passed and fell asleep, our mother lying between us and the opening, as was her invariable custom.

I was startled out of my sleep by a stamping overhead, caused by the rabbits in the heart of whose burrow we were