e bushes, and watched
distrustfully each movement of their parents. The sire stuck to his post
on the mound, and, with hoarse grunts, varied occasionally by thin,
piping squeals that did not seem in the least to accord with his
wrathful demeanour, continued to keep them at a distance.

Soon the dam moved slowly away, climbed the track towards the top of the
wood, and then called to the cubs as they sat peering after her into the
darkness. Released from discipline, and eagerly responsive to her cry,
they lurched after her, and followed closely as she led them further and
still further from home. Presently, the dog-badger overtook his family.
His manner, as well as the dam's, had changed; and though great caution
was exercised as they journeyed along paths well trodden, and free from
twigs that might snap, or leaves that might rustle, and though silence
was the order of the march, the little family--proud parents and shy,
inquisitive children--seemed as happy as the summer night was calm. The
distant sound of a prowling creature, heard at times from the margin of
the wood, caused not the slightest alarm to the cubs: the intense
nervousness always apparent in young foxes was not evinced by the little
badgers.

In comparison with the fox-cubs, they were not easily frightened; they
already gave promise of the presence of mind which, later, was often
displayed when they were threatened by powerful foes. Brock,
nevertheless, betrayed astonishment when a dusky form bolted through the
whinberry bushes close by; and several moments passed before he was
able, by his undeveloped methods of reasoning, to connect the scent of
the flying creature with that of the rabbits often carried home by his
mother, and, therefore, with something good for food.

At the top of the wood, the old badgers turned aside and led the way
through a thicket, where, in obedience to their mother, the youngsters
came to a halt, while their sire, proceeding a few yards in advance,
sniffed the ground, like a beagle picking up the line of the hunt.
Having found the object of his search, he called his family to him, that
they might learn the meaning of the various signs around. But the doings
of the woodland folk could not yet be learnt by the little badgers, as
by the experienced parents, from trifling details, such as the altered
position of a leaf or twig, the ringing alarm-cry of a bird, the fresh
earth-smell near an upturned stone, or the taint of a moving