THE FOXES 



565 



and the thighs, which communicate the peculiar silvery lustre to the fur. Individ- 

 uals may, however, be met with, in which the fur is either completely black or com- 

 pletely gray. That the red fox and the cross fox are undoubtedly a single species is 

 conclusively proved by a statement of Audubon to the effect that both varieties 

 may be found in a single litter of cubs. While the red and cross varieties are char- 

 acteristic of the eastern districts of the United States, the far rarer silver fox is a 

 northern form, a large number of its skins coming from the upper reaches of the 

 Mississippi, and the districts to the northwest of the Missouri river. 



So much has been written about the habits of the English fox that 

 our remarks on this subject will be brief. Although the fox is by no 

 means averse to taking possession of the deserted burrow of a rabbit or a badger, it 

 generally excavates its own "earth," in which it spends a considerable portion of 

 its time. As all hunters know, foxes, however, frequently prefer to live out in the 

 woods, those with a northern aspect being, it is said, generally avoided. Sometimes 

 these animals will prefer a thick hedgerow, or a dry ditch, while we have known 

 them to select the tall tussocks of coarse grass in swampy meadows as a resting place ; 

 and they have also been found in straw-ricks, where it is on record that in one in- 

 stance the cubs have been born. The breeding time is in April, and the usual num- 

 ber of young in a litter is from four to six. The prey of the fox consists, writes 

 Bell, "of hares, rabbits, various kinds of ground birds, particularly partridges, of 

 which it destroys great numbers ; and it often makes its way into the farmyard, 

 committing sad havoc among the poultry. It has been known not unfrequently to 

 carry off a young lamb. When other food fails the fox will, however, have recourse 

 to rats and mice, and even frogs and worms ; while on occasion beetles are largely 

 consumed, and, on the seashore, fish, crabs, and mollusks form a part of its diet. 

 Carrion seems never to come amiss ; while the old story of the fox and the grapes al- 

 ludes to the fruit-eating propensities of these animals." The usual cry of the fox 

 is a yelping bark. The well-known scent of the fox is secreted by a gland situated 

 beneath the tail. The cunning displayed by English foxes in escaping from hounds 

 has been so often described, that we shall make no further allusion to it here, be- 

 yond saying that it has probably attained its present development as the result of 

 the inherited experience of many generations. 



That the fox is an ancient inhabitant of the British Islands is proved by the oc- 

 currence of its fossilized remains in caverns in company with those of the mammoth 

 and other extinct animals. This, however, is not all, for a skull, indistinguishable 

 from that of a large English fox, has been dug up from the sands lying at the top 

 of the Red Cray of Suffolk, which are vastly older than the mammoth period. 



A very different animal from the red American variety of the corn- 

 Gray ox mon QX j g t j je g ray QX wrginianus) of North America, which is 



regarded by Professor Mivart as exhibiting some approximation to the fox-like 

 South American species described above. It is a considerably smaller animal than 

 the average European fox; and is characterized by the grizzled gray color of the top 

 of the head and the upper part of the body ; in marked contrast to which is the 

 rufous tint of the fur of the sides of the throat and body and the limbs. The upper 

 surface of the tail is dusky, while below it is chestnut ; its extremity being dark, 



