d curiously like little lambs, with their
woolly coats, their long, thick legs and innocent expressions, and yet a
second glance at their broad, sharp-nosed, sharp-eyed visages showed
that each of these innocents was the makings of a crafty old fox.

They played about, basking in the sun, or wrestling with each other till
a slight sound made them skurry under ground. But their alarm was
needless, for the cause of it was their mother; she stepped from the
bushes bringing another hen--number seventeen as I remember. A low call
from her and the little fellows came tumbling out. Then began a scene
that I thought charming, but which my uncle would not have enjoyed at
all.

They rushed on the hen, and tussled and fought with it, and each other,
while the mother, keeping a sharp eye for enemies, looked on with fond
delight. The expression on her face was remarkable. It was first a
grinning of delight, but her usual look of wildness and cunning was
there, nor were cruelty and nervousness lacking, but over all was the
unmistakable look of the mother's pride and love.

The base of my tree was hidden in bushes and much lower than the knoll
where the den was. So I could come and go at will without scaring the
foxes.

[Illustration: They tussled and fought while their mother looked on with
fond delight.]

For many days I went there and saw much of the training of the young
ones. They early learned to turn to statuettes at any strange sound, and
then on hearing it again or finding other cause for fear, to run for
shelter.

Some animals have so much mother-love that it overflows and benefits
outsiders. Not so old Vixen it would seem. Her pleasure in the cubs led
to most refined cruelty. For she often brought home to them mice and
birds alive, and with diabolical gentleness would avoid doing them
serious hurt so that the cubs might have larger scope to torment them.

There was a woodchuck that lived over in the hill orchard. He was
neither handsome nor interesting, but he knew how to take care of
himself. He had digged a den between the roots of an old pine-stump, so
that the foxes could not follow him by digging. But hard work was not
their way of life; wits they believed worth more than elbow-grease. This
woodchuck usually sunned himself on the stump each morning. If he saw a
fox near he went down in the door of his den, or if the enemy was very
near he went inside and stayed long enough for the danger to pass.

One morning