718 Life-histories of Northern Animals 



in the season that the mother's pelt was prime, bringing $75, 

 though the young were big enough to rear by hand. 



The cubs are clad in lead-coloured fur and look as much 

 like kittens as Foxes when they come. They are blind till 

 8 or 9 days old. They do not venture out of doors till they 

 are three or four weeks old, and the den continues to be their 

 only home for 3 months. 



Fordyce sends me also the following interesting notes on 

 the Fox family that he observed near Auburn, N. Y. : "One 

 morning in the end of March, 1877, a man came to the store 

 in the country village where I lived and said that while coming 

 across the fields of a neighbour, an old Fox had jumped out of 

 a hole in a tree near which he was passing and run away bark- 

 ing. I overheard what he was saying, and as it was the same 

 wood-lot in which I had found the two young Foxes the previ- 

 ous June, I at once thought there might be some cubs in the 

 tree. I started out across the fields and 'back-tracked' the 

 man, there being snow on the ground, until I came to the place 

 where he had stopped. The tree was a standing basswood 

 about four feet in diameter. The Fox-track led from the hole 

 at the base of the tree, but no track came to it. As it had 

 snowed the night before, this indicated that the old one had 

 gone in before the snow-storm, and remained there until the 

 man had frightened her away. I reached into the hole and 

 found that the hollow diameter of the tree was about two feet. 

 I felt a warm bunch of little creatures, one of which I pulled 

 out, looked at, and, as I had expected, it was a young Fox. 

 I then removed my coat, laid it on the snow beside the tree, to 

 put them on a warm spot, and took out the others, 9 in all. 

 The little creatures did not look unlike new-born kittens, but 

 were about twice as large. Their eyes were not open, and I 

 do not think, from their condition, they were more than one 

 or two days old. I selected one of the lot and took it home to 

 raise, but, having no way to feed it properly, it died within a few 

 days. I then followed the track which the old Fox had made 

 when the man had frightened her away from the tree. She 

 had run directly to a hilltop, nearly a quarter of a mile away, 



