THE FOX AND HIS FUR 207 



The black fox is very wary, and gives the trappers 

 more trouble than any other fur-bearing animal. 

 Its sensitive nose warns it of the least taint of man, 

 and it is said that it can snap the springs of the traps 

 and steal the bait without being caught. At other 

 times it will dig under the trap, but this device is 

 met by setting the traps upside down, so that the fox 

 is caught after all. 



Next in value to the black fox is the cross fox, 

 which is, like the former, only a local variety of the 

 common fox. The skins of the cross fox vary 

 perhaps more in colour than those of any other 

 variety. Some are hardly to be distinguished, except 

 by experts, from the pelt of the black fox, while 

 others are like the red fox, only that the fur is 

 rather darker. The American red fox is larger and 

 lankier in form than its European cousin. The legs 

 and belly are black as in the Sardinian and Italian 

 variety, known as Melanogaster. The red fox has a 

 very fine fur. It varies greatly in size as well as 

 colour, from the little red fox of Virginia to the foxes 

 of Kadiak Island, which are almost as big as wolves. 

 The price of these skins ranges, according to vagaries 

 of fashion and the quality of the fur, from two 

 shillings up to thirty. The young red foxes are laid 

 up in earths like our own cubs, but are born some- 



