FAUNA OF THE ALEUTIAN ISLANDS AND ALASKA PENINSULA 295 



duced for commercial purposes on most of the islands by the 

 Russian-American Company. He adds that the earliest visitors 

 to the Aleutians found "tame" foxes on the larger islands and 

 assumed they had originally been placed there by man. However, 

 with due consideration of the well-known "tameness" of the Arctic 

 fox in all its range, including Greenland, the lack of wildness is 

 no indication of any degree of domestication. 



Elliott (1897, p. 180) wrote that blue foxes were introduced on 

 Attu "many years ago." The above records, however, furnish 

 good evidence to the contrary. 



At present, there is no evidence that blue foxes occupied the 

 eastern Aleutians. From available records it is reasonable to 

 conclude that blue foxes originally occupied only the Near Is- 

 lands of the Aleutian chain. Even today, the next island eastward, 

 Buldir, has no foxes and apparently has never had them. It is 

 one of the few islands on which geese are able to nest unmolested 

 by foxes. Evidence is lacking that blue foxes occupied any islands 

 east of Buldir. 



It is possible that the blue foxes of the Near Islands originally 

 were derived from the Commander Group. Ice floes from more 

 northern latitudes could have drifted down, at rare intervals, to 

 provide the necessary bridge or ferry — red foxes have been known 

 to reach the Pribilofs over the ice, and a crossing to the Aleutians 

 could easily be made. 



The Arctic fox, apparently chiefly of the white color phase, 

 occurs rather sparingly on the Alaska Peninsula. Osgood (1904) 

 reported — 



Straggling individuals of the Arctic fox are not infrequently found as far 

 south as the north shore of the Alaska Peninsula, doubtless having 

 followed the pack ice in winter. One was killed by fishermen near Igagik 

 in the spring of 1902. They are also said to be found in the Togiak district 

 and very rarely at Nushagak. 



In 1911, Wetmore wrote (of the Morzhovoi Bay region), 

 "One white fox is reported to have been killed on the Bering Sea 

 side here in the winter of 1908. It is supposed to have come down 

 on the ice in winter. No others were known." 



I found no evidence of Arctic fox at the western end of Alaska 

 Peninsula in 1925, but in 1936 I was informed by a resident at 

 Port Molier that there were some white foxes about 60 miles 

 northeast of that place in 1914. In 1936, the late Alexis Yatch- 

 meneff, who had been chief of one of the Aleut villages, said 

 that before the Russians came there were red, cross, and silver 

 foxes on Unalaska but there were no white or blue foxes. 



