io8 REPORT OF NEW JERSEY STATE MUSEUM. 



ish, legs black, partly white on the inside; throat white, ears tip- 

 ped with black. 



The cunning of the fox both in robbing the hen roost and in 

 eluding his pursuers is well known to everyone; and it is to the 

 present species that all the stories of shrewdness pertain, the 

 gray fox being an animal of quite different character. 



The food of the red fox besides poultry, consists of all sorts 

 of wild birds, and all of the smaller quadrupeds from the size of 

 a fawn and woodchuck down tO' the smallest mice; insects, too, 

 form part of his diet when nothing better is to be found. 



Foxes have their dens in the woods, usually dug out in some 

 rocky locality, and here the young are reared. I have known 

 young foxes to become quite tame when kept in captivity, but 

 only allowed one person who was constantly near to handle 

 them. Of the rest of the family or strangers they always were 

 more or less afraid. 



Red foxes from the earliest days have been regularly pursued 

 by fox hunters with their packs of hounds, and an old fox will 

 lead them a long chase, rarely going to earth unless complet^ely 

 worn out. In the more thickly settled parts of the country foxes 

 are often protected by lovers of the sport expressly for hunting, 

 and there is' many a difference of opinion between the hunter and 

 the farmer on the question of shooting these animals. Sometimes 

 too, foxes are introduced from elsewhere when they have be- 

 come well-nigh exterminated, and Mr. Rhoads presents pretty 

 conclusive evidence that the red foxes of lower New Jersey, 

 Pennsylvania and southward are the descendants of foxes origi- 

 nally imported from England for hunting purposes. The earliest 

 records quoted by Mr. Rhoads show that the gray fox was the 

 only one then known to the inhabitants (see Mammals of Penna. 

 andN. J., p. 145). 



Viilpcs fiilvus Abbott, Cook's Geol. of N. J., 1868, p. 753. — 

 Geol. Cape May Co., 1857, p. 137. — Rhoads, Mam. Pa. and N. 

 J., 1903, p. 145. 



Vulpes pennsylvanicus Rhoads, Proc. Acad. Nat. Sci. Phila., 

 1897, p. 31. 



