THE BLACK FOX IN NOEWAY. 45 



So plentiful were foxes in Norway in the eighteenth 

 century, that no less than 4000 skins were annually 

 exported from Bergen to foreign countries. That 

 town, then in reality the capital of Norway, was, no 

 doubt, the centre to which the skins were sent from 

 all parts of the country. The Eussians purchase a 

 great number of Norwegian fox- skins every year. 



The colour of the fox in Norway is a light rufous- 

 brown, tinted with yellow, with white on the forehead, 

 shoulders, and lower parts of the back ; cheeks and 

 throat, white ; tail, rufous-yellow, tinged with black, 

 tip white ; ears tipped with black ; paws, black. The 

 female produces from three to five cubs in April. I 

 have seen a common bitch fox in Norway, which had 

 just recovered from a,flode sygdom, or flowing sickness. 

 It was emaciated, the fur was short and patchy, the 

 tail was almost bare, and of a dark ash-blue colour. 



The black fox is held in high estimation in Norway, 

 and its skin is extremely valuable. Its hair is much 

 finer, softer, and longer, than in the common fox. Its 

 colour is black, tinged in parts with silvery white. A 

 good skin of a black fox is worth from 50 to 100 sp. 

 dollars. 



A friend of mine at Christiania had purchased a 

 litter of five young foxes, which he intended to send 

 to England. They were placed in a large box, but 

 during the night they managed to escape. After 

 playing about the yard for a time, they got into the 

 corridor which runs round all Norwegian houses. The 

 jom-fru, or housekeeper, hearing the noise made by 

 the young foxes scampering up and down, unfastened 

 her chamber-door and looked out ; when the playful 

 young creatures ran in and began to bite and scratch 



