240 NATDEAL DISTOIIY COLLECTIONS IX ALASKA. 



luigan. lu early spriug, toward the eud of March, wlieu the seals begin to haul up ou the ice 

 and the first young are boru, thousands of these foxes go out seaward and live upou the ice the 

 rest of the season. The young seal's offal, left by hunters and from other sources, gives them more 

 food there than the shore affords at this time. 



At this season I have traveled along the coast and seen scores of their tracks leading sea- 

 ward, and not one directed toward the land. In fall a dead whale or other large sea animal cast 

 ashore forms a general feast for all the foxes and ravens from the country around until its bones 

 are polished. 



The young of this species are boru in May and June. 



Our party scaled the precipitous walls of Herald Island and found these foxes in posses- 

 sion. As we were the tirst men to reach its summit, and but a single party had touched its 

 shore before us, the foxes were perfectly unsophisticated. A half-grown young one sat ou a 

 huge rock over us as we gained the top, and kept uttering a squeaky bark of protest. I climbed 

 up to his perch and followed him as he kept 15 to 20 yards ahead of me until he disappeared over 

 the brow of a precipice of over a thousand feet nearly sheer and concealed himself in some crevice. 

 Their burrows were found everywhere, and about their entrances numerous tufts of freshly-pulled 

 mosses showed the material of which their beds were made. Near the entrance of one of these 

 burrows I inadvertently left a uote-book, and when I returned for it an hour later it had disap- 

 peared, having been confiscated, no doubt, by the occupant of the hole. Their tracks were also 

 nu,merous ou Wraugel Island, and I do not think any Arctic explorer has yet found a land too 

 desolate and forbidding to shelter the Stone Fox. During very stormy and severe winters they 

 have a difficult task to get food, and are driven to forage in the immediate vicinity of the villages. 



While I was at Saint Michaels, one very snowy winter, a white fox came up on a snow- 

 drift and looked from the roof of a warehouse into the courtyard below, where a large num- 

 ber of dogs were lounging about. Some of the dogs spied the intruder, and he was overtaken by 

 a large white dog, after a chase of a couple of hundred yards through the deep snow. The moment 

 the dog came close the fox threw himself upon his back and held up his paws as if to play ; the dog 

 stopped short in amazement, and then began to frisk about as if iu play with another dog. The 

 rest of the jiack came up in a moment, and urged by their cries, the first dog ran in and tried to 

 seize the fox, but the latter caught him by the end of the nose with such a grip that the dog re- 

 treated toward the houses howling dolefully and dragging his plucky antagonist with him. It 

 was only wheu near the houses that the other dogs succeeded in tearing the fox loose, and with 

 him went part of his enemy's nose and lip; a moment later the fox died in the midst of his enemies, 

 overcome by numbers. 



The Eskimo trap them with a "figure-four" deadfall made of logs, stones, or slabs of ice or 

 snow. Steel traps obtained from the fur traders are also used. 



The young are covered with a dingy or smoky i^lumbeous fur all summer until the last of 

 September or first of October, when the white winter fur begins to appear. In spring the fur 

 gets worn and is harsh and worthless by the middle of April ; it becomes prime again about the 

 end of October. 



The Blue Stone Fox. — Although the White Fox is unknown upon the Aleutian Islands, the 

 Blue Fox is found throughout the chain, and also upon the Fur Seal Islands. Ou the latter 

 islands it is very numerous, and as these foxes have a particularly fine fur here great care is exer- 

 cised to kill any stray specimens of the White Fox that the ice may bring over in winter, and thus 

 prevent any crossing between the two forms. On the Fur Seal Islands from one to two thousand 

 skins of the Blue Fox are taken annually. Owing to the climatic peculiarities and isolation of 

 these islands the fur of the Blue Foxes taken there is very dark and of an unusually fine quality, 

 bringing in the London market several times the price of a skin from the mainland. This pecu- 

 liarity is also shared, to a slightly less extent, by the Blue Foxes from the islands of Attn and 

 Atka, at the extreme western end of the Aleutian chain. 



On the Fur Seal Islands these foxes are protected to a certain extent and are impudently 

 familiar. When one walks across the uplands the foxes sit by their holes and bark at him, and 

 often follow from place to place, yelping like ill-mannered curs. 



