llow. Here
they had their first course of mice, the easiest of all game. In
teaching, the main thing was example, aided by a deep-set instinct. The
old fox, also, had one or two signs meaning "lie still and watch,"
"come, do as I do," and so on, that were much used.

So the merry lot went to this hollow one calm evening and Mother Fox
made them lie still in the grass. Presently a faint squeak showed that
the game was astir. Vix rose up and went on tip-toe into the grass--not
crouching, but as high as she could stand, sometimes on her hind legs so
as to get a better view. The runs that the mice follow are hidden under
the grass tangle, and the only way to know the whereabouts of a mouse is
by seeing the slight shaking of the grass, which is the reason why mice
are hunted only on calm days.

And the trick is to locate the mouse and seize him first and see him
afterward. Vix soon made a spring, and in the middle of the bunch of
dead grass that she grabbed was a field-mouse squeaking his last squeak.

He was soon gobbled, and the four awkward little foxes tried to do the
same as their mother, and when at length the eldest for the first time
in his life caught game, he quivered with excitement and ground his
pearly little milk-teeth into the mouse with a rush of inborn
savageness that must have surprised even himself.

Another home lesson was on the red-squirrel. One of these noisy, vulgar
creatures, lived close by and used to waste part of each day scolding
the foxes, from some safe perch. The cubs made many vain attempts to
catch him as he ran across their glade from one tree to another, or
spluttered and scolded at them a foot or so out of reach. But old Vixen
was up in natural history--she knew squirrel nature and took the case in
hand when the proper time came. She hid the children and lay down flat
in the middle of the open glade. The saucy low-minded squirrel came and
scolded as usual. But she moved no hair. He came nearer and at last
right overhead to chatter:

"You brute you, you brute you."

But Vix lay as dead. This was very perplexing, so the squirrel came down
the trunk and peeping about made a nervous dash across the grass, to
another tree, again to scold from a safe perch.

"You brute you, you useless brute, scarrr-scarrrrr."

But flat and lifeless on the grass lay Vix. This was most tantalizing to
the squirrel. He was naturally curious and disposed to be venturesome,
so again he came to the ground an