. A cool wind, blowing straight from the
direction of a homestead indistinctly outlined against the dawn, stirred
the leaves in the ditch, and brought to the badger's nostrils the
pungent scent of burning wood--the milkmaid was already at work
preparing a frugal breakfast in the kitchen of a lonely farm. Fearing
that with the day the birds would mock her as she passed, and thus
reveal her whereabouts to some inquisitive foe, the badger sought the
loneliest pathway through the wood, and returned, silently but hastily,
to her home.

II.

HOME DISCIPLINE.

During the mother badger's absence from home, an unlooked-for
event--almost the exact repetition of an incident in the training of
Vulp, the young fox--had happened in the education of her cubs. Her
mate, hunting in an upland fallow, had been surprised by a poacher, and,
long before daybreak, had discreetly returned to the "set." The success
he had met with had enabled him to feed to repletion, so he was not
tempted by the dead rabbit carried home by the mother and left in the
chamber. Fearing to leave his hiding place, he wisely determined to
devote the time at his disposal, before settling to sleep, to his
children's instruction. With a grunt like that of the mother when she
greeted her offspring, he at once aroused the slumbering youngsters,
and then, heedless of their attentions, as, mistaking him for the dam,
they pressed at his side, he laid hold of the rabbit and dragged it into
a far corner. Full of curiosity, the cubs followed, but with well
assumed anger he drove them away. As if in keen anticipation of a feast,
he tore the dead animal into small pieces which he placed together on
the floor of the chamber. This task complete, he retired to his
accustomed resting place, and listened while the cubs, overcoming their
timidity, ventured nearer and nearer to the dismembered rabbit, till,
suddenly smelling the fresh blood, they gave way to inborn passion, and
buried their teeth in the lifeless flesh. An inevitable quarrel ensued;
Brock and his companions could not agree on the choice of tit-bits, and
a medley of discordant grunts and squeals seemed to fill the chamber,
though now and again it partly subsided, as two or three of the cubs,
having fixed on the same portion of the rabbit, tugged and strained for
its possession--so intent on the struggle that they dared not waste
their breath in useless wrangling.

The old badger, satisfied that his progeny g