CHAPTER SEVENTEEN 



THE GRAY FOX 



THE fox of Louisiana is the typical fox of the South, the 

 gray fox, a small, sly, cunning, agile mammal with a 

 coat that is pepper-and-salt gray above, rusty-brown 

 beneath, with a red patch on each side of its neck. 



Scientifically it has been dubbed with a long and prac- 

 tically unpronouncable name, Urocijon cinereoargenteus. 

 (If you must pronounce it do it in this wise: U-ro-ci/on 

 cin-e're-o-ar-gen'te-us.) There is no characteristic folk 

 name for this animal in Louisiana and a fox, as it is every- 

 where, is a fox. The Indians of the Gulf regions had their 

 own name for this animal, chula was the Choctaw desig- 

 nation, and toxka, the Biloxi name. 



The word fox is of doubtful origin, but is supposed to 

 have come to us from the Teutonic languages, the Dutch vos 

 or the German fuchs. Some have suggested that there may 

 be a connection between the Sanskrit pucha, which means 

 tail, and the presently and widely used name, but this seems 

 to be far-fetched. 



"Crazy as a fox," seems to be a part of our present-day 

 speech that will persist and the slang adequately describes 

 this shrewd gray skulker of our wooded sections of Louisi- 

 ana, although it must be admitted that this animal does not 

 live up to the sly and cuninng reputation of the red fox 

 of the North and East, an animal by the way, that does 

 not belong to our fauna, although a number of them have 

 been brought here and released by fox hunters. 



The Louisiana gray fox seldom, if ever, lives in bur- 

 rows ; it shows a decided preference for refuges in hollow 

 logs, or it will rake together a bed of dry leaves in a tangle 

 of bushes and undergrowth and here it will sleep in the 

 open air, and, frequently, the vixen, as the female fox is 

 known, raises her litter of puppies in such a bed. The 

 litter is usually three to five and the puppies are born blind 

 and helpless, and are blackish in color. Audubon is the 



