362 



WASHBURN 



The business is carried on only on St. George Island, and 

 as now conducted is the result of several years of experi- 

 menting by the Company. A suitable house has been 

 erected on St. George for storing food and skinning the 

 foxes. Adjacent to this is a large square enclosed with 

 wire netting, where the foxes are fed and the selection of 

 males for killing is made. Only a few females are killed, 

 the Company proceeding on the basis of the belief that 

 the foxes are polygamous. It has been found, here, as 

 elsewhere, however, that this view is not fully sustained 



FOX CAGE-TRAPS, FOX FARM NEAR KADIAK. 



by experience, for, although females have not been killed 

 on St. George Island for several years, there is no very 

 perceptible increase in the size of the herd. 



The food used is cooked meal and fish and salted seal 

 meat, the latter being freshened before giving it to the 

 foxes. Owing to the vast number of birds which frequent 

 the island it is only necessary to feed the foxes during the 

 severe weather of the winter months. White foxes now and 

 then appear on the islands and are shot wherever found to 

 avoid the injurious effects of admixture with the blues. 



