98 THE COMMON FOX. 



As to habits, Mr. Blanford tells * us : " The Himalayan Fox lives 

 in brushwood and cultivated land, from an elevation of 5000 or 6000 

 feet upwards, frequently haunting the neighbourhood of human habita- 

 tions and feeding upon such birds and small mammals as he can 

 capture. . . . The Central- Asiatic variety lives in open country, hiding 

 in burrows or amongst bushes or rocks by day." The honeycomb 

 of wild bees is eaten by these animals, which are also exceedingly 

 fond of grapes. 



There are preserved in the British Museum the individual skins 

 whereon Mr. Swinhoe founded his two proposed species V. hook and 

 C. lineiventer. The former of these, he tells f us, is a " Fox of the 

 plains and lower hills of South China, and in form and size very 

 similar to that of Europe ; but it is paler, wants the black spot on the 

 sides of the snout, and has the colours of its coat differently arranged." 

 It is common on the bare granitic hills of Amoy, and Mr. Swinhoe 

 saw as many as six together at one time. It also inhabits Hongkong 

 island. When pursued, they spring with great agility from rock to 

 rock, and will soon outrun a greyhound in such a locality. 



V. lineiventer was obtained by Mr. Swinhoe at Amoy, from the 

 higher mountains of Fokien. He describes it as very like Bona- 

 parte's melanogaster, but is " remarkable for having a fine line of 

 chestnut on each side of the belly. It is very brightly coloured, and 

 so differs conspicuously from" V.hooley "though in form and size very 

 similar." 



With Mr. Swinhoe's careful description in hand, we have com- 

 pared these skins with those of a number of European and other foxes, 

 and cannot consider them to be more than local varieties. The same 

 must be said with regard to a Fox from Japan described by Mr. Adams |, 

 and Gray's V. japonica, which are of a uniform dull brown colour, 

 or nearly so, when adult, while a younger specimen is intermediate 

 between the forms named hoole and lineiventer. 



* Loc. cit. p. 154. f Op. cit. p. 631. 



J See Proc. Zool. Soc. 1860, p. 195. 



