THE LIFE OF A FOX. 5

for want of sufficient strength to return to it have
perished with cold. Thus Nature goes on to care
for us. I had two brothers and two sisters, and
we all throve and grew rapidly with the nourish-
ment of our mother’s milk alone, until we were
six weeks old, when she began to supply us with
other food, such as rabbits, and. rats and mice,
which she.tore to pieces and divided. amongst us
in equal shares, not however so much to our satis-
faction as to prevent our snarling and quarrelling
with each other thus early over our meals. That
part of the earth where we lodged was between
two and three feet square, with several passages
just large enough for our mother to crawl along :
several of these crossed each other, and of two
that terminated outwards one only was used by
our mother, who stopped up the other for times
of emergency. In these several passages we daily
amused ourselves with chasing each other round
and round. On one occasion, we were inter-
rupted in the midst of our gambols by the sudden
entrance of our mother, who seized us with her
sharp teeth, and carried us to the back of the
B 3