50 



A. L. V. Manniche. 



of the ears, just as the white hairs on the body had a bluish tint 

 at the bottom. In February, March and April the white foxes were 

 finest, the covering hairs being now longer, dazzlingly white and 

 soft as silk. 



The blue foxes often wore a little tuft of white hairs on the 

 front of the breast or at the tip of the tail. They varied rather 

 much in colour however. Some were uniformly blackish blue, 

 others had a peculiar reddish tint along the back. Still most of the 

 blue foxes had on the upper side (head, back and tail) a smaller or 

 larger amount of white hair-tips, the distribution of which varied 

 very much. Without exception the blue foxes were darkest on the 

 belly which might be quite black in some animals. 



Fig. 17. Shot blue fox, March 1908. 



Out of all the foxes killed on the expedition 76 adult animals 

 were in pure winter dress. 31 of these were blue, the rest white. 

 The division of the sexes was as following 



Blue 



11 females 

 18 males 

 2 without designation 



White 



13 females 

 27 males 

 5 without designation 

 of sex. 



of sex. 



In the middle of May the hair change began. Before that time 

 the blue foxes had assumed a strongly faded reddish or yellowish 

 colour which was especially conspicuous on the upper side of the 

 animal. During my summer residence at Stormkap I daily saw 

 foxes in the motley coat of the hair-shedding. The animals were 

 now astir all day long. The highly deranged hair-covering gave 

 them an ugly and discordant appearance, and I was hardly able to 

 recognize the beautiful, lively arctic fox from the autumn and win- 

 ter. With a wide-sounding, incessant screaming or mewing the 



