678 



AMERICAN FORESTRY 



of summer, probably owing to the comparatively mild 

 character of the Icelandic winter. The Arctic fox has 

 little of the proverbial cunning of its kind, having been 

 seen to walk unsuspiciously into the trap which has 

 been baited in its presence. It is an exceedingly cleanly 

 animal, and the faetid odor, characteristic of the entire 

 genus, is almost absent in this species. It differs also 

 from the common fox in being gregarious, living, accord- 

 ing to Richardson, in little villages consisting of twenty 

 or thirty burrows placed near each other. The Arctic 

 foxes seek their food, which consists of lemmings, birds, 

 eggs, and carrion, at night, and their first impulse, says 

 Captain Lyon, on securing it is to hide it, even though 

 suffering severely from hunger. It was suggested, some 

 years ago, by Professor Newton that this species sup- 

 ported itself during winter on a store of provisions laid 

 up during sum- 

 mer, and cap- 

 t a i n Fielden 

 was able dur- 

 ing a polar ex- 

 pedition to con- 

 firm this. Even 

 in G r i n n e 1 1 

 Land, he and 

 bis companions 

 came upon 

 Arctic foxes, 

 and were great- 

 ly surprised on 

 d i s c o v ering 

 numerous de- 

 posits of dead 

 lemmings. 'In 

 one nook,' says 

 Captain Field- 

 en, 'under a 

 rock, we pulled 

 out over fifty ; 

 w e disturbed 

 numerous 

 caches of twen- 

 ty or thirty, and the ground was honeycombed with holes, 

 each of which contained several bodies of these little 

 animals, a small quantity of earth being placed over 

 them.' (A Voyage to the Polar Sea, by Captain. Sir 

 G. Nares.)" 



John Murdoch gives a short account of the Arctic 

 fox in the Report of the International Polar Expedition 

 to Point Barrow, Alaska, and he speaks especially of 

 the great speed of this species when alarmed. "They 

 seem almost to fly over the ground instead of running." 

 A still better account than Murdoch's is to be found in 

 Nelson's Report upon the Natural History collections 

 made in Alaska between the years 1875 an ^ J 88i. Here 

 the two color phases of the species are described as 

 though they were two subspecies of the Arctic fox. They 

 are spoken of as the "White Stone Fox" and the "Blue 

 Stone Fox," although it is stated that the habits of the 



THIS IS THE ARCTIC FOX OF AMERICAN BOREAL REGIONS 



Figure 7. It is white in winter and bluish-gray in summer, and both pelages are here shown 

 figure and the preceding one were copied by the writer from Professor St. George Mivart's grea 

 on the canine species of the world, they being excellent likenesses of the living animals. 



two forms are identical. Writers of the present, how- 

 ever, make no distinction between the blue and the white 

 fox, having discovered that the two pelages are simply 

 seasonal changes. Nelson found the "White Stone Fox" 

 wonderfully abundant in some localities, it being resident 

 in some places. This was the case along all of the belt 

 of open country north from the peninsula of Alaska 

 around all of the Behring Sea and Arctic shores of the 

 territory. When connected by ice, they were also found 

 upon the islands of the Behring Sea and those of the 

 Behring Straits. They were found to be extremely 

 numerous in all the open country lying between the 

 Lower Yukon and Kuskoquim Rivers. 



In support of the fact that Nelson and True took 

 the "Blue Stone Fox" to be an entirely different form 

 from the "White Stone Fox," they say in their account 



that "although 

 the White Fox 

 is unknown 

 upon the Aleu- 

 t i a n Islands, 

 the Blue Fox is 

 found through- 

 out the chain, 

 and also upon 

 the Fur Seal 

 Islands. On the 

 latter it is very 

 numerous ; and 

 as these foxes 

 have a particu- 

 larly fine fur, 

 great care is 

 exercised to kill 

 any stray speci- 

 mens of the 

 White Fox 

 that the ice 

 may bring over 

 over in the 

 winter, and 

 thus prevent 

 any crossing between the two forms." 



In summer, before the animals lose their pure white 

 coats, they are very conspicuous, especially when they 

 cross any dark area of ground. In winter, the very 

 reverse of this is the case, and their snowy coats not 

 only protect them against their arch enemy, the gray 

 wolf, but gives them opportunity to stalk ptarmigan and 

 other game almost unnoticed until the moment of cap- 

 ture. Around camps in winter they make their presence 

 known by their feeble and querulous barking, and if 

 hungry they will steal anything eatable they can get hold 

 of, from game to snow-shoe thongs. 



The Esquimaux trap a good many of the foxes with 

 a "figure-of-four," or with steel traps. Thousands of 

 their pelts have been sold in the English markets, and 

 a good blue fox skin is a thing of great value at any 

 time. "Blue foxes are bred and kept for the sake of 



