282 



NORTH AMERICAN FAUNA 



[No. 55 



fox " phase, upper parts largely black or dusky, overlaid with whitish or straw- 

 colored tips of long hairs, the clear yellow usually appearing on sides of shoul- 

 ders, neck, and face ; back of ears, nose, tail, and feet black or blackish ; tip of 

 tail always white ; lower parts yellow, with black throat and belly. In silver- 

 gray phase all black, upper parts frosted with white-tipped hairs; tip of tail 

 white. In black phase all black, except white tip of tail. Young at birth dark 

 brown or black, with tip of tail white. 



Measurements. Average of three males from type locality: Total length 

 1,070 mm ; tail, 412 ; foot, 178 ; ear (dry) , 83. Skull of type : Basal length, 133 ; 

 zygomatic width, 70. Weight about 8 to 12 pounds. 



Distribution and habitat. These yellow foxes inhabit the Cascade 

 Range in Washington and Oregon, and extend south into the north- 

 ern Sierra Nevadas, but the limits of their range are not well defined 



(fig. 64). There are spec- 

 imens from Mount Hood, 

 The Dalles, South Ice 

 Cave (40 miles south of 

 Bend), Fremont, and near 

 Fort Klamath. Also they 

 are reported from the 

 Lower Deschutes Valley, 

 the Klamath Lakes, from 

 the mouth of the Colum- 

 bia by Lewis and Clark in 

 1805, from near Tilla- 

 mook by A. K. Fisher in 

 1897, and from Mount 

 Hebo, west of Corvallis 

 by Elmer Williams in 

 1930. A beautiful speci- 

 men was collected for the 

 Biological Survey by H. D. Langille at Cloudcap Inn, near timber 

 line on Mount Hood, on October 10, 1896, and another in the Wood 

 River Mountains near Fort Klamath by B. L. Cunningham on 

 December 24, 1897. 



In 1855 Suckley and Gibbs (1860, p. 113) collected specimens and 

 reported them common at Fort Dalles, Oreg. (The Dalles), where 

 large numbers of skins of all four forms red, cross, silver, and 

 black were reported among those brought in to the fur traders. 

 The great variation in color was very confusing to the settlers there, 

 as every shade of intergradation was shown among the four color 

 phases. 



In addition to the specimen records there are reports of foxes 

 by Suckley and Gibbs from the Klamath Lakes country in 1855, 

 by Lewis and Clark at the mouth of the Columbia in 1805, and 

 by A. K. Fisher near Tillamook in 1897. In more recent times they 

 have been reported from Swan Lake Valley, Yamsay Mountain, 

 Klamath Lake, Crater Lake, Mount McLoughlin, Paulina Moun- 

 tains, Cascade range west of La Pine, and about the Three Sisters 

 Peaks. Also Cantwell in April 1919, reported seeing four very pale 

 skins that had been taken at 6,000 feet on Mount Hood. Usually 

 these foxes are absent from the densely timbered or brushy areas 

 west of the Cascades, as well as from the arid sagebrush valleys 

 east of the range. Open grassy parks and meadows afford their 

 favorite hunting grounds, and the greatest abundance of mice and 

 small rodents on which they largely subsist. 



FIGURE 64. Range of the two forms of red foxes in 

 Oregon: 1, Vulpes fulvus cascadensis; 2, V. f. 

 macrourus. Type localities circled. 



