ture, it needed the quiet and solitude of night to restore his
peace of mind; and even when he had escaped the din, and lay in his
couch among the bleached grass and withered leaves, his ears were
continually strained in every direction to catch the least sound of dog
or man. When in the winter he ran for life before the hounds, and tried
by every artifice to baffle his pursuers, these "clap-cats" of the woods
would jeer him on his way. Once, when he ventured into the river, and
headed down-stream, thinking that the current would bear his scent below
the point where he would land on the opposite bank, the magpie's clatter
caused him the utmost fear that his ruse might not succeed. But luckily
the hounds and the huntsman were far away. The birds, however, were not
the only advertisers of his presence; the squirrel, directly she caught
sight of him, would hurry from her seat aloft in fir or beach, to the
lowest bough, and thence--though more wary of Vulp than of Brighteye,
the water-vole--fling at him the choicest assortment of names her varied
vocabulary could supply. Still, for all this irritating abuse Vulp had
only himself and his ancestry to blame. The fox loved--as an article of
diet--a plump young fledgling that had fallen from its nest, or a tasty
squirrel, with flesh daintily flavoured by many a feast of nuts, or
beech-mast, or eggs. It was but natural that his sins, and those of his
forefathers, should be accounted to him for punishment, and that it
should become the custom, in season and out of season, when he was known
to be about, for all the woodland folk to hiss and scream, and
expostulate and threaten, and to compel his return to hiding with the
least possible delay. Thus it happened that he scarcely ventured, during
the day, to attack even a young rabbit that frisked near his lair, lest,
screaming to its dam for help, it should bring a very bedlam about his
ears.

While roaming abroad in the summer night, Vulp gradually became
acquainted with all sorts of vermin-traps used by the keepers. Once,
treading on a soft spot near a rabbit "creep," he suddenly felt a slight
movement beneath his feet. Springing back, he almost managed to clear
the trap; but the sharp steel teeth caught him by a single claw and for
a moment held him fast. He wrenched himself loose, and retired for a
while to examine his damaged toe-nail. Then, reassured, he again
approached the trap, so that he might store up in memory the
circumst