ed the stillness.

Suddenly, a deep-voiced hound broke through the bushes and bayed loudly
before the entrance. His fellow joined him, and their foreboding clamour
reverberated in the chamber. Terrified, the fox crawled slowly into the
recess of the den. Presently a shaggy terrier came down the tunnel, and
bit him sorely on the flank. He scarcely had the courage to turn on the
aggressor; but the enraged vixen, thrusting her mate aside, quickly
routed the daring intruder, and followed his retreat to the very mouth
of the "earth," where she turned back, threatened by the great hounds
that stood without. But even the reckless courage of maternity was
unavailing. Soon the noise of blows and of falling earth was heard, as
the passage was gradually opened by brawny farm labourers, working with
spade and pick, and assisted in their task by the eager huntsman, who
ever and anon thrust a long bramble-spray into the tunnel and thus
ascertained the direction of its devious course.

At last the tip of the fox's "brush" was seen amid the soil and pebbles
that had fallen into the chamber. The huntsman had cut two stout hazel
rods; these he now thrust into the hollow, one along either flank of the
fox; then, grasping their ends firmly about the exposed tail, he drew
poor Reynard from his hiding place, and thrust him, defiant to the last,
and with his teeth close-locked on one of the hazel rods, into an old
sack requisitioned at the nearest farm. The vixen met a similar fate,
while the sleek, furry little cubs, treated with the utmost gentleness,
were wrapped together in the Master's handkerchief and given to the care
of an attendant.

Reynard's life was nearing its close. In the meadow behind the keeper's
cottage the hounds were summoned by the huntsman's horn, and the bag was
opened. The scene that followed marred, for some of us at least, the
beauty of the bright March morning. The vixen and her cubs were carried
away, and found a new home in an artificial "earth" prepared for their
reception near a distant mansion.

II.

A NEW HOME.

When the vixen recovered from the excitement and distress consequent on
her capture, she found herself in a commodious, well ventilated chamber,
circular in shape and slightly above the level of two low and narrow
passages leading into the covert. The sack had been opened at the
entrance of one of these passages, and the vixen had crawled through the
darkness till, finding further retrea