UNDER THE NORTH STAR 315 



purplish tinges down his sides like a prince royal, may make a hand- 

 some fur which has lately become a craze. His cousin with the 

 black fore feet, the prairie fox, who is the largest and strongest 

 and scientifically finest of all his kind, has more value as a fur. The 

 color of the prairie fox shades rather to pale ochre and yellow 

 than the nondescript grizzled gray that is of so little value as a fur. 

 Of the silver-gray fox little need be said. He lives too far south — 

 California and Texas and Mexico — to acquire either energy or gloss. 

 He is the one indolent member of the fox tribe, and his fur lacks 

 the sheen that only winter cold can give. The value of the cross 

 fox depends on the markings that give him his name. If the bands, 

 running diagonally over his shoulders in the shape of a cross, shade 

 to grayish blue he is a prize, if to reddish russet he is only a curiosity 

 to be dyed. 



The Arctic and black and silver foxes have the pelts that at their 

 worst equal the other rare furs, at their best exceed the value of all 

 other furs by so much that the lucky trapper who takes a silver 

 fox has made his fortune. These, then, are the foxes that the 

 trapper seeks and these are to be found only on the white wastes 

 of the polar zone. 



That brings up the question — what is a silver fox ? Strange 

 as it may seem, neither scientist nor hunter can answer the question. 

 Nor will study of all the park specimens in the world tell the secret, 

 for the simple reason that only an Arctic climate can produce a silver 

 fox; and parks are not established in the Arctics yet. It is quite 

 plain that the prairie fox is in a class by himself. The uniformity of 

 his size, his strength, his habits, his appearance, distinguish him from 

 other foxes. It is quite plain that the little kit fox or swift is of a 

 kind distinct from other foxes. His smallness, the shape of his bones, 

 the cast of his face, the trick of sitting rather than lying, that won- 

 derful big bushy soft tail of which a peacock might be vain — all differ- 

 entiate him from other foxes. The same may be said of the Arctic fox 

 with a pelt that is more like white wool than hairs of fur. He is much 

 smaller than the red. His tail is bushier and larger than the swift, and 



