NORTHERN OCEAN. 383 
great requeft among the women; who make 
them into a variety of ornaments, fuch as fhot- 
bags, belts, garters, bracelets, &c. Their mode 
| of copulation is fingular, for their quills will not 
permit them to perform that office in the ufual 
mode, like other quadrupeds. ‘To remedy this in- 
| convenience, they fometimes lie on their fides, and 
| meet in that manner; but the ufual mode is for 
| the male to lie on his back, and the female to 
| walk over him, (beginning at his head,) till the 
parts of generation come in contact. They are 
the moft forlorn animal I know; for in thofe 
parts of Hudfon’s Bay where they are moft nu- 
| merous, it is not common to fee more than oné 
|in a place. They are fo remarkably flow and 
| ftupid, that our Indians going with packets from 
| Fort to Fort often fee them in the trees, but not 
| having occafion for them at that time, leave them 
| till their return; and fhould their abfence be a 
week or ten days, they are fure to find them 
within a mile of the place where they had feen 
them before. 
Foxes of various colours are not fcarce in thofe Foxes of 
parts; but the natives living fuch a wandering lous. = 
life, feldom kill many. It is rather ftrange that 
no other fpecies of Fox, except the white, are 
found at any diftance from the woods on the 
, barren ground; for fo long as the trade has been 
) eftablifhed with the Efquimaus to the North of 
Churchill, I do not recollect that Foxes of any 
| other colour than white were ever received from 
| them. : 
The 
