57 o THE CARNIVORES 



Labrador, writes that on a certain day " I started up a blue fox, which was running 

 toward me with a murre's [guillemot's] egg in his mouth ; on my throwing a 

 stone at him he dropped the egg and scampered off. I hallooed for nearly ten 

 minutes for some one with a gun to come and shoot him, and kept him in sight. 

 With more of curiosity than fear he would stop at intervals to look at me, keeping a 

 safe distance off and barking, until he disappeared. Soon Mr. W. came up ; we 

 pursued, finding him on the other side of the island, with another egg in his mouth. 

 Mr. W. gave him his death wound, though he ran some distance with the egg be- 

 tween his teeth before he dropped dead. His flanks and belly were white, the rest 

 of a slate-blue color, his legs very long, and tail long though not very bushy. The 

 more remarkable features were his short, rounded ears, as if cropped." It is not, 

 however, by any means solely on birds and their eggs that the Arctic fox subsists, 

 as in some districts it also preys largely upon the small Rodents known as lem- 

 mings. In one district during the Arctic Expedition of 1875, under Sir G. S. 

 Nares, numbers of dead lemmings were discovered which had been killed by these 

 foxes, and hordes of lemmings were pulled out from the crannies of the rocks, 

 which had been collected by the foxes as a winter provision ; thus confirming Pro- 

 fessor Newton's suggestion as to the probable manner in which these animals 

 subsist in winter. 



With the desert fox (C. leucopus) of Southwestern Asia we revert 

 x to the foxes of the temperate and tropical regions of the Old World. 

 This species is considerably smaller than the common fox, the length of the head 

 and body varying from nineteen to twenty-two inches, and that of the tail from 

 twelve to sixteen inches. It agrees, however, with that species in having a small 

 white tip to the tail, as it also does in the dark-colored ears. Moreover, when the 

 full tints are developed, this animal is more strikingly colored than the common 

 species, although there is a considerable amount of individual variation in this re- 

 spect. When fully colored, the fur of the back varies from brownish yellow to 

 rusty red, and there is usually a distinct pale patch on each side of the back behind 

 the shoulders, in front of which is a dark transverse stripe across them. The sides 

 are lighter, while the under parts generally vary from .slaty gray to blackish, the 

 chin, and generally a spot on the chest, being white. In summer the dark under- 

 fur is seen through the ordinary hairs, and the whole color is grayer, the under 

 parts being then nearly white. This species is found throughout most of the sandy 

 and more or less desert regions on the western side of India, and also extends into 

 Baluchistan, Afghanistan, probably Persia, Arabia, and most likely other districts 

 of Southwestern Asia. It is essentially a desert-hunting species, and in India ap- 

 pears to live chiefly on the gerbils so common in the same sandy regions. 



In the deserts of Central Asia the preceding species is replaced by 

 CorsacFox , . f - ,. \ & ./ 



the corsac fox (C. corsac), distinguished by its general paler color, 



white under parts, and the black tip to the tail, the shoulder spots and stripe of the 

 desert fox being also wanting. The two are, however, evidently very closely allied 

 and Professor Mivart suggests that they may prove to be local varieties of one 

 species. The range of the corsac extends from the banks of the Volga and the 

 shores of the Caspian Sea to the southeastern parts of Siberia ; while eastward it 



