46 A. L. V. Manniche. 



devour the lower animals appearing in such places, for a change. 

 Perhaps the fox will also eat insects. Though my opinion is not 

 founded on positive observations, still I feel convinced that the fox 

 is a dangerous enemy to the young of the polar hare. The adult 

 hare on the contrary has nothing to fear, judging from my experi- 

 ences. I very often saw foxes and hares in the immediate neigh- 

 bourhood of each other, even under circumstances, where it seem- 

 ed as if the fox might easily take the hare by surprise, if it cared 

 to hunt it at all. The two animals did not seem to heed each 

 other in the least. I have made these observations at all seasons 

 of the year. As an example the following may be stated. 



In the end of March 1907 I was staying about twenty kilometer 

 north-east of the ship's harbour. Near the coast an extensive, almost 

 flat plain is situated, on which an isolated little mountain knoll, 

 most like a burial mound in form and size, rises a few meters 

 above the ground. Here some foxes had their usual place of resort 

 every day. It was just in the pairing time, and the male foxes 

 were incessantly pursuing the female that Avas present, sometimes 

 on the top of the hill, sometimes round the foot of it, striking up 

 at the same time the most fearful concert of howls. The snow was 

 trampled down completely by the foxes everywhere. Out on the 

 plain I found fresh traces of a hare, and following these I saw to 

 my astonishment that they led to the "fox's hill", on the top ot 

 which the hare was sitting quietly enough and half asleep, while 

 the foxes were bustling about quite close to it. On the following 

 day I again paid a visit to the place, finding the hare once more 

 sitting in the midst of the company of foxes. At my arrival four 

 of the foxes reluctanctly retired a little way out on the plain, while 

 the hare indolently jumped a few steps down the slope to go on 

 with its nap there. 



In the comparatively large number of fox's stomachs which I 

 examined, I never found hairs or other rests of adult hares — nor 

 of leverets, as I have mentioned before — and likewise I found in 

 no case in the dung of the fox or outside its dwelling anything 

 which might prove that a hare had been devoured. According to 

 these observations I presume that the small and comparatively 

 weakly built arctic fox must consider the larger and in some re- 

 spects far more powerful polar hare as an animal far too imposing 

 and hardly obtainable to make it an object of pursuit. 



The foxes sought with great avidity the traps where I had em- 

 ployed the skins and entrails of hares as a bait. 



The arctic fox is an extremely pleasant little animal as well in 

 manners as in aspect — this does not apply, however, to its extre- 



