Arctic Fox 



tipped with whitish, legs lighter; under parts white; tail buffy 

 below, tip white, very full and bushy; a black patch on each 

 side of the muzzle. 

 Range. Nebraska to Colorado and northward over the plains. 



This is a much smaller animal than our red and gray foxes, 

 and is restricted entirely to the Western plains. 



Arctic Fox 



Vulpcs lagopus (Linnaeus) 



Also called Blue Fox, White Fox. 



Length. 40 inches. 



Description. Upper parts brown, belly whitish, fur everywhere 

 bluish-gray at the base, and sometimes this colour predomi- 

 nates. In winter the whole animal is pure white. 



Range. Arctic regions. There appear to be several geographic 

 forms. 



The little blue foxes of the far north live in communities or 

 fox-villages, digging twenty or thirty burrows together in places 

 where the soil is light and sandy. In summer they hunt for 

 lemmings in the moss-grown tundras and barren grounds, dig- 

 ging them out of their holes or pouncing on them as they 

 traverse their runways in the thick, wet sphagnous beds that cover 

 the swamps and boggy places. 



At this season the Arctic fox lives in luxury, for besides the 

 lemmings there are numberless wild fowl nesting by the margin 

 of every stream; and on the ridges, willow grouse and snow 

 buntings hide their eggs in the reindeer moss and low bushes, 

 or in warm hollows where the short-lived blossoms of the north- 

 land crowd together in dense borders of bright colours. 



The lemmings are so numerous and easily caught that a 

 very few hours each day spent in hunting them would easily 

 keep the fox supplied with meat. 



But the little stub-nosed blue-fox, though he lacks something 

 of the wily shrewdness of the long-headed red fox of the wood- 

 land, is nevertheless a very intelligent beast. 



Knowing that summer will soon be over, and the lemmings 

 safe in their hidden roadways beneath ice and snow, and the 



273 



