HABITS OF FOXES ON PRIBILOF ISLANDS 363 



A marked difference exists between the habits of the 

 foxes on St. Paul and St. George islands and materially 

 affects the question of their cultivation. On St. George 

 they flock around the village in winter and seize greedily 

 any articles of food lying about and, as previously noted, 

 are quite tame and readily handled in the large wire cage. 

 On St. Paul they are rarely seen about the village and the 

 carcasses of mules dying in the winter have remained un- 

 touched. Nor has it been possible to induce them to con- 

 gregate at any fixed place, even by scattering dried fish 

 about. The result is that although much study has been 

 given the matter, no system has yet been devised of culti- 

 vating the foxes or handling them on St. Paul Island 

 except by using steel traps, which destroy male and 

 female alike; this necessitates limiting the catch so as not 

 to encroach too closely on the breeding stock. The dif- 

 ference in habits on the two islands presents a problem 

 which has not yet been solved, nor has the further fact 

 been explained fully that although on St. George Island 

 the foxes have received abundance of food and the females 

 have been carefully protected, there has been no appreci- 

 able increase; on the contrary, as compared with olden 

 times, there has been a diminution. At present, the total 

 catch ranges from 600 to 800, while in former years it was 

 often twice that number. The suggestion, which has 

 much force, has been made by Mr. J. C. Redpath, a com- 

 petent observer of twenty years' experience on the islands, 

 that many foxes are carried off and lost on the ice, which 

 in recent years has annually floated down from the north 

 and surrounded the islands. 



In addition to the experiments in raising blue foxes 

 which it has carried on, the Semidi Propagating Company 

 has attempted to domesticate the beautiful silver-gray fox. 

 Several years ago this company, in connection with two 

 local men of Boothbay, Maine, purchased Outer Heron 



