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[Illustration]


MASTER REYNARD

The History of a Fox

From Animal Autobiographies by J. C. Tregarthen

Revised by

JANE FIELDING







New York
A. L. Chatterton Co.

Copyright, 1913
A. L. Chatterton Co.




MASTER REYNARD


The earth where I was born was far down the face of a steep cliff
and opened on a sloping shelf of turf, from the edge of which the
undercliff fell sheer to the sea. The entrance we used most was
slightly above the level of the springy sward and led by a small
tunnel to a roomy chamber where daylight never penetrated.

There on the bare dry ground the vixen laid us--my two sisters and me.
If I was like the baby cubs I have since seen, I was born blind, my
muzzle was blunt and rounded, and my coat as black as a crow, the only
white about me being a few hairs in the tag of my tiny brush. Even at
the time when I first remember what I was like my fur was still a very
dark color and bore no resemblance to the russet hue of a full-grown
fox.

This was a few weeks after my eyes were opened, when, after awaking
from our first sleep, we were in the habit of sunning ourselves just
inside the mouth of the earth. It was there, with my muzzle resting on
the vixen's flank, that