ANTICOSTA AND ITS FUR. 133 



feet broad by nine feet long and showed the 

 marks of no fewer than eleven bullet holes in 

 his hide. The man from whom I purchased the 

 skin told me he met the monster while traveling 

 along the sea beach and fired at him. The bear- 

 dropped, but in a moment arose to his feet and 

 rushed for the hunter. Fortunately there was 

 a high rock near by, up which the man clamb- 

 ered with his gun, out of reach of the infuriated 

 beast and from this "Coin de advantage" Ar- 

 senault loaded and fired round ounce balls into 

 the bear until he was dispatched. 



While on this trip I secured two of the finest 

 and purest silver grey fox skins I ever handled. 

 It is not generally known that a pure silver fox 

 is much rarer than black or black silver. What 

 I mean by pure silver is a fox that is silvered 

 from the very head right down to the white tip 

 of the tail. The majority of so-called silver 

 foxes are black from the head to a third of the 

 way down the back; a part of the body and 

 rump alone being silvered. 



In the Hudson's Bay Company trading posts, 

 foxes are graded when purchased under the 

 following names : black, black silver, silver grey, 

 black cross, dark cross, ordinary cross, (first 

 cousin to red) bright red, light red, white. I 

 am aware that to make this list complete blue 



