VULPES LEUCOPUS. 151 



ones always go mad after a longer or shorter interval, and certainly I 

 have known one or two instances of this. 



Vulpes corsac, Pallas, of Central Asia, appears to be nearly allied to 

 this fox, but the ears are represented to be still larger. Some from 

 Africa have yet larger ears, such as the Fennec of North Africa, V. zerda, 

 and the Caama of the Cape of Goop Hope : these have been placed in a 

 distinct genus, Megalotis, Illiger. 



The next species, though so similar in general appearance to the last, 

 that it is often confounded with it by sportsmen, is placed by Blyth in 

 restricted Vulpes. 



139. Vulpes leucopus. 



BLYTH, Cat. 135. 



THE DESERT Fox. 



Light fulvous on the face, middle of back, and upper part ef tail j cheeks, 

 sides of neck and body, inner side and most of the fore part of limbs, 

 white ; shoulder and haunch, and outside of the limbs nearly to the midde 

 joint, mixed black and white ; tail darker at the base above, largely tipped 

 with white ; lower parts nigrescent ; ears black posteriorly ; fur soft and 

 fine, as in V. montanus, altogether dissimilar from that of V. bengalensis. 

 The skull with the muzzle distinctly narrower, and the lower jaw weaker. 



One I killed at Hissar had the upper parts fulvous, the hair black- 

 tipped ; sides paler ; whole lower parts from the chin, including the 

 inside of the arm and thigh, blackish ; feet white on the inner side and 

 anteriorly, with a blackish border on the anterior limbs ; legs fulvous 

 externally ; all feet white ; tail always with a white tip. 



Length, head and body, 20 inches ; tail to tip 14 ; weight 5J Ib. 



Mountstuart Elphinstone (quoted by Blyth), writing of the foxes of the 

 Hurriana desert, says, " their backs are of the same colour as the common 

 fox ; but in one part of the desert their legs and belly up to a certain 

 height are black, and in another white. The line between these 

 colours and the brown is so distinctly marked that the one kind seems as 

 if it had been wading up to the belly in ink, and the other in whitewash." 

 It has been suggested that the female is always white-limbed, and the 

 dog with black limbs ; but the variation of colour is apparently due to 

 the degree of abrasion of the hairs of the limbs, which are mixed black 

 and white. Some are very light-coloured above ; others are sandy-red. 



The Desert Fox inhabits the North-west of India, from Cutch on the 



