of the Mackenzie River District, 17 



Foxes are very shy animals and difficult to tame, indeed when 

 old they appear to pine away in confinement, when young they 

 are playful,but at all times rather snappish. They are far from soci- 

 able and generally burrow alone, although it is not uncommon 

 for the members of one family to live together. 



The fox-burrow or den is often many yards in length, with va- 

 rious ramifications and side galleries to it, in the centre of which 

 an excavation rather wider than the passages, serves for the sleep- 

 ing apartment. To this there are always two entrances and often 

 more. The den is kept very clean, and in some dozen which I 

 have opened, I found neither bones of animals nor offal of any 

 kind. To dig out a fox a flat piece of iron, called an 

 earth-chisel, is tied to a stoat wooden handle, the trapper inserts 

 a long slender pole of willow, or other flexible wood into the en- 

 trance, having stopped up any other that exists, to find the direc- 

 tion in which the passage runs. He then digs another hole and 

 inserts his pole, finding with its point whether any other passao-e 

 exists, and if so, marking the direction. In this manner he pro- 

 ceeds till he digs to where the fox is, who is generally killed in 

 one of the side galleries, or close to one of the closed entrances. 

 This method of killing a fox entails a large amount of labour as 

 it often takes a whole day to unearth the animal. 



Of all the natural gifts of the fox, the most remarkable is his 

 exquisite sense of smell. When the fox finds a piece of meat or 

 fish he almost invariably hides it, and returns to eat it at some fu- 

 ture period. I have remarked this trait even in cubs, which I have 

 reared in confinement, and which used, previous to eating, to dig 

 holes in the snow to bury their food, pushing the snow with their 

 noses to cover it. During the commencement of summer he will 

 lay up a store of the eggs of wild-fowl, for his winter's consump- 

 tion, these he deposits in holes dug in the sand bars of the river, 

 or in beds of moss, and at the expiration of several months, will, 

 when pressed by want, visit his caches. Even when there 

 are several feet of snow on his deposit, he will readily distinguish 

 the place by scenting his urine, with which a fox invariably 

 sprinkles in a liberal manner, all his secret hoards. 



This animal is by no means choice in his food ; mice, birds, 

 hares, fish, carrion, all come alike to him, and he will even make a 

 meal of a fellow fox if he find one dead in a trap. In summer a 

 great number of young water-fowl are killed by him, and when 

 musk-rats are, by the freezing up of their houses, driven to mi- 

 grate in the winter, he devours them without mercy. 



Can. Nat. 2 Vol. VI. 



