The Cubs' Playground
Unseeing eyes pass blindly over the home of a litter of cubs; but the keeper's never overpass the place. Long furrows through the dog's-mercury and grasses tell their tale. Primroses are torn and crushed, the great leaves of the burdock are bruised and broken, the moss is rubbed from the underwood stumps and from the boles of trees where the cubs have been gambolling and rubbing their coats, the excavated soil near the earth is smooth from the pattering of their feet, beaten hard and polished—and in all directions there are scattered wings, feathers and bones. If the keeper calls, and sees signs of recent rollicking play and fresh-killed food, and fresh-drawn soil where the cubs amuse themselves at earth-making and enlarging the burrows of rabbits, he knows the family to be in residence. Should the soil near the entrance to the earth have a green look, he knows the family has gone away.
