lying. The noise, which broke out again and again just as I was on the point of dropping off, irritated me so much that at last I got on my hind-legs, thrust my muzzle into the hole in the roof, and breathed loudly through my nostrils. This snorting was not without result, for after the stampede that followed there was quiet for a long time. Nevertheless the tiresome creatures had spoilt my day's rest and, try as I might, I could not doze off again. My sisters slept through it all, and the vixen showed no sign of being disturbed, except that she half opened her eyes when the rabbits scampered over the spot where she lay. It was very early, as I could tell by the scent of the furze that stole along the tunnel and almost overpowered the flavor of rabbit, from which the den was never quite free. To pass the weary hours I licked the mud off my legs, which still smarted, and, whilst I did so, thought of our narrow escape, and wondered in a vague way whether fires were to be numbered amongst the regular troubles of a fox's life.

At length the vixen roused herself, and when the coolness and smell of the air warned her that the sun had set, she rose and led us forth, not for our usual gambols, but, as it proved, for our first lesson in hunting. I suspected something unusual was afoot the moment she ordered us to follow her across the stream, whither she had taken us to drink; and the further we got from the earth, the more excited I grew at the prospect of the adventures before us. It was most exhilarating to be wandering over the broad, high country, which, in comparison with our ledge at the foot of the precipice, seemed like the roof of the world. For nights and nights past I had yearned to accompany my mother on her rounds, and the unexpected gratification of my intense longing thrilled every fibre of my being. So great was my excitement that I quite forgot not only a loose milk tooth that had been worrying me, but even the tenderness of my poor pads, on which I had with difficulty limped to the drinking-place.

The vixen ran steadily some dozen paces in front, and side by side we cubs followed in her train, noiselessly as shadows. It fascinated me to watch her lissom movements as she stole along, and to note the ripples that ruffled her smooth coat when she crossed the broken ground. We had passed over one hill and were breasting the next beyond before I began to wonder what we were going to see and how soon, and then, without warning, she reared on her hind-legs, listened with ears erect, and pounced on something in a patch of rushes, in which she buried her long muzzle. The next instant she came trotting back to my little sister, and gave her the mouse she held between her lips. Her quick hearing had detected its movements in the undergrowth.

But mousing was apparently not the chief business of the night, for, without dwelling, she stepped across the dried-up runnel which the rushes fringed, and headed for the craggy ridge above. In her progress up the steep slope she kept scanning the ground to right and left of the trail as if she expected at any moment to see the prey she was in search of, and when near the crest, she crouched and crawled forward with the utmost caution. With breathless excitement we wormed our bodies along in her wake, as though we had been trained to it. But we had not; we were imitating her instinctively, and kept our distance as faithfully as the shadow of her brush that darkened the moonlit ground in front of us.

On reaching the ridge I could not help shifting my gaze to glance at the wide marshland below us, so strikingly unlike any scene my young eyes had looked on. Here and there on the level expanse sheets of water and a winding stream shone like silver, and from the great reed-beds about them came a soft voice like the murmur of waves on a distant beach. This was the expression of a stolen instant, and no sooner were my eyes back on the vixen than she sank to the ground as though she had suddenly lost the use of her legs. We did the same. This pleased her, as I could tell by the expression of satisfaction in the eager face which she turned slowly towards us and as slowly withdrew, brushing aside as she did so the dry bents that rose a good way up her long ears.

At first I wondered what she had found, as the only living things visible to me were some rabbits far below on the lip of a funnel-shaped warren. But presently over her head I saw the tips of the ears of a rabbit quite close to us, and my heart began to thump as it had perhaps never done before. The sight of the living prey had awoke in me the dormant spirit of the hunter that has hardly slumbered since; and not in me only—my sisters were evidently as excited as I was, for their brushes were lashing mine as wildly as mine did theirs.

The rabbit meanwhile winded danger and, as its nostrils showed, kept sniffing the air to try and locate it. When it succeeded, its eyes fell, not on a stealthy enemy thirsting for its blood but—so sudden was the vixen's change of attitude and demeanor—on a harmless, playful fox rolling on her back as I had seen her roll in utter guilelessness a hundred times. The rabbit started, as well it might, and I expected to see it dive into its hole; but, marvellous to relate, instead of seeking safety it regained its composure and resumed its nibbling on an almost bare patch, towards which the assumed frolics of the vixen and the slant of the ground were leading her. Then, with one of the lightning-like rushes which made her look a blurred mass even to our quick eyes, she was on it, and when she faced us the rabbit's head and hind-quarters hung limp as she held it across her mouth.

On witnessing the kill we cubs jumped to our feet, eager to partake of the first course of our supper. But when we attempted to take it from her mouth, to our amazement the vixen snarled at us as she had never done before. My little sister, to whom she had always been so tender, was the last to try, and, incredible as it may seem, the vixen turned on her like a fury.

Nothing but my desire to record faithfully the impressions of that time would make one own that I considered my mother unnatural and cruel in denying food to the weakling among her cubs. If the water which had cooled our parched throats the night before scalded us we should not have been so taken aback as by this sudden change of conduct on her part. It was simply incomprehensible. Had something outside our knowledge caused her to turn against us? If not, what did she mean by her harshness?

It did occur to me that this unaccountable behavior might be feigned, and that presently she would drop the rabbit at our feet and be again the affectionate mother she had always been. Indeed, I watched her out of the corners of my eyes from the spot to which I had retired, expecting to see her snarl relax into a grin. But in this I was disappointed, for, on reaching a ledge below, to which we followed her at a respectful distance, she devoured every bit of the luscious morsel before our eyes, though she knew well enough that we were ravenously hungry. The delicious smell of the hot entrails which the wind brought us put the keenest edge on my appetite—already sharp set by the previous night's shortness—and with the strong craving to satisfy it came the novel thought of satisfying it with a rabbit of my own catching. The bunnies were still playing about on the edge of the warren, and whilst the vixen kept shifting her gaze from them to me, licking her blood-stained lips, the lesson she wished to teach suddenly flashed upon me, and the explanation of her conduct was complete. She was saying as plainly as could be: "There is your prey. I have shown you how to catch it. Go and