VOL. XV, PP. 167-172 AUGUST 6, 1902 



PROCEEDINGS 



OF THE 



BIOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF WASHINGTON 



FOUR NEW ARCTIC FOXES. 

 BY C. HART MERRIAM. 



The White or Arctic fox of Lapland* and Siberia was de 

 scribed by Linnaeus in 1758 under the name Canis lagopus 

 (Syst. Nat., Ed. 10, p. 40, 1758). A related form from Iceland 

 (the Sooty fox of Pennant), was named Canis fidiginosus by 

 Shaw in the year 1800 (Gen. Zool., Vol. I, pt. II, p. 331, 1800). 

 So far as I am aware no other names for members of the group 

 were proposed until 1898, when Barrett-Hamilton and Bonhote 

 in a joint paper described a small form from Spitzbergen 

 as subspecies spitzbercjenensis (Ann. & Mag. Nat. Hist., 7th 

 ser., I, p. 287, April, 1898). But they state that they are unable 

 to distinguish the Spitzbergen form from the one from Iceland 

 named fuliginosus by Shaw a century earlier. If the two are 

 the same, spitzbergenensis of course becomes a synonym of 

 fuliginosus. 



In 1900 I described a small Arctic fox from Hall Island, Ber 

 ing Sea, under the name hallensis (Proc. Wash. Acad. Sci., 

 II, p. 15, March 14, 1900). 



The material at present available for study is utterly insuf 

 ficient to admit of a satisfactory revision of the group. Barrett- 

 Hamilton and Bonhote had few if any skins with skulls from 



*The type locality may be restricted to Lapland. 



32-BioL. Soc. WASH. VOL. XV, 1902. (167) 



