LIKE JOLLY LITTLE PUPPIES

Evening Star, Issue 18717, 20 August 1924, Page 5

LIKE JOLLY LITTLE PUPPIES

In British binding connlrics, if one lias the time and the patience, June is the season to learn something about the shy creatures that provide the csporl- of foxhunting (writes Jessie Frederick, in Iho ‘Daily Mail’). In choosing a, site for their earths foxes are singularly careloss, so there is no need to tramp mile; to some lonely wood to watch the- link cubs play. One is just as likely to find them along some sunny hrdgesirle in an ordinary field. I saw a family last spring quite close to a. road where heavy traffic passes regularly. The fox babies are very nervous. If (hey scent you in the wind you may watch all day and never see them. But patience and' quiet will bo rewarded with a very pretty sight. in June the rubs are from six to twelve weeks’ old. They are as big as full-grown cats, and have beautiful furry tails, iif making- the earth the old foxes scratched a heap of sand out in front, and in this the little ones lie, and play, rolling and scuffling with each other like jolly puppies. It has been noticed that a nursery earth often lias a playground. A narrow path through the grass or young corn lends to an open space, where the cubs may have a change of surroundings to romp in. They have their playthings too. The leg of an old rooster 'stolen from a near-by farm, bleached bones, or the chin of the rabbit they had for dinner provides something to worry and carry about. 'When they get older the vixen will tench them to catch their first prey, an unfortunate little field mouse foraging about in the grass. It is seldom that both parents arc away from the earth at once. -.Somebody must stay to keep .house. The clog fox is a devoted parent, and should anything happen to the vixen-mother lie will rear the whole family himself if they are old enough to cat the food he brings. In the autumn ono may come in vain to see them. When they are old enough to fond for them selves, the parents desert them, and then the cubs will leave the old homo too, drifting out into tho wild, each to get a living for himself.