Cubs at Christmas
We met a gamekeeper who had been blessed with a litter of fox cubs born about the middle of December—just before the usual mating-time of the foxes. When most of the season's cubs would be born these Christmas cubs would be three months old, and well grounded in the elements of a fox's education. And when the pheasants and partridges began to sit they could save their mother a deal of laborious work—as our friend the keeper found out. In cub-hunting days, there must have been some rude shocks for the puppies of the pack, and even the old stagers of hounds must have been taken aback when they came to close quarters with one of these forward cubs. The keeper caught one, and by a strange chance. He had been expecting a visit from hounds. He knew an earth where he thought that possibly a vixen later on might have a family; not willing to disturb the place by spade-work when stopping it, he stuffed the entrance with sacks. Hounds came and went—and afterwards the keeper visited the earth to recover his sacks. What was his surprise when he found that inside one of the sacks a cub had curled itself comfortably for sleep. Well knowing that if he were to say there was a litter of cubs on his ground at Christmas none would believe him, he put the cub into a capacious pocket. Then when he told the story of his early litter, and was laughed at for his pains, he confounded sceptics by drawing the little fox, alive and uninjured, from his coat-tails.
