34 EXPERIMENTS. 



provided with suitable sheds, where every care was taken 

 of the animals, and their proceedings very closely watched. 

 But M. Bjorkman, one of the parties interested in the ex- 

 periment, shall tell the story in his own words. 



"In November, 1827," says that gentleman, "we pur- 

 chased a brace male and female of crossed-foxes. At 

 the end of the following February (1828), pairing took 

 place; and at the beginning of May (nine weeks, as it 

 would appear, having been the period of gestation) three 

 young ones were produced. They were at first blind, and 

 of a blackish-blue colour, which, after the lapse of three 

 weeks, gradually changed in two of them to the colour 

 of the common-fox, and in the third to that of the crossed- 

 fox. The red young ones retained, nevertheless, the pecu- 

 liarities of the crossed-fox namely, larger proportions of 

 body, greater breadth of forehead, larger eyes, thicker legs, 

 and a more bushy tail. One of the red, and also one of 

 the crossed-foxes, were, at a subsequent period, sold to 

 the National Museum at Stockholm, where they are still 

 preserved. 



"During the year 1829, a red dog-fox, and four bitches 

 were procured and turned into the enclosure, along with 

 the two original crossed-foxes. But although pairing was 

 observed to take place, we did not obtain a single young 

 one that summer ; and for the reason, as it was believed, 

 that when the females littered, they had immediately 

 devoured each other's cubs. Owing to this misadventure, 

 all the red foxes were at once banished the colony. 



" In 1 830 the two old crossed-foxes produced three cubs 

 (besides one or two others that the male, who was present 

 at the birth, was known to have devoured), all of which 



