The terrestrial mammals and birds of North-East Greenland. 49 



The animals were trotting round after each other, always in the 

 above mentioned strangely jumping gallop, till at length they paired. 

 In this case the male was blue and the female white. The obser- 

 vation took place early in the afternoon in 38 degrees of cold. A 

 week later I saw in the territory north-east of the ship's harbour 

 some pairing foxes, their meeting place being the above described 

 mountain knoll in the middle of a plain near the coast. 



I never saw^ quite small fox's cubs. Two half-grown cubs, be- 

 longing to different litters, w^ere shot in August 1906 near Hvalros- 

 odden. Both animals were very short-haired and had as near as pos- 

 sible the same bluish grey colour marked wåth lighter parts on the 

 belly and along the sides. The skins w'ere brought to the museum. 

 (Vid. flg. 1 pi. I). 



In the beginning of October the young foxes from the same 

 year had put on a more long-haired winter dress. With all the 

 young foxes which I saw, this coat w^as of a dingy, withish blue — 

 lighter or darker — "mezzo tint". Four animals in this colour 

 stage, shot in the end of October and the beginning of November 

 were brought home to the museum. (Vid. fig. 2 and 3 pi. I). 

 While one of these young foxes had just shed its milk-teeth, the 

 three others were still shedding their teeth. 



A young, not quite full-grown fox of light, whitish blue colour 

 was caught October 14'i^ 1906 and brought on board alive. The 

 animal already wore a thick, rather long-haired winter coat. This 

 fox died Decbr. 17''^ the same year, bitten to death by a dog, having 

 at this point of time almost assumed the colour of the adult white 

 fox. Along the back and on the upper side of the tail however a 

 faint, w^hitish blue tint was still to be distinguished. 



Towards the end of the winter and in the spring months I 

 never saw foxes of the above described whitish blue mezzo tint. 

 This fact combined wdth observations of the colour change of the 

 imprisoned fox shows that the young, whitish blue animal, while 

 reaching its full development in the course of the winter, assumes 

 the constant, perfectly white winter coat of the adult white fox 

 through a successive change of colour and not by shedding the 

 hairs. Strangely enough I never, as before mentioned, saw a young, 

 not yet full-grown fox, the colour of which was so dark that it 

 might convey the impression of turning constantly blue at length. 

 Neither did I meet with older animals in whitish blue coats. These 

 were in the winter dress quite white or quite blue. As a rule the 

 white foxes had a few dark hairs collected on the utmost tip of the 

 tail, more rarely on other parts of the body. In the beginning of 

 the winter the white foxes had some bluish grey hairs on the back 



XLV. 4 



