376 



RED FOX. 

 Vulpes pennsylvanieus. 



DESCRIPTION. 



About as large as a medium-sized dog; weight about fifteen 

 pounds; height about fourteen inches; measures about forty- 

 four inches in length, including the bushy long-haired tail 

 which measures about seventeen inches, to the tip which is 

 generally white. The ears, behind, outside of legs, the snout, 

 and the tips of many caudal hairs, are black. The general 

 color is "a bright, clear, yellowish rufous, darker on the shoul- 

 ders and flanks." The belly quite white along its middle, dark- 

 ens laterally; the chin, throat and breast are white or whitish. 

 The Black or Silver Fox, sometimes, though rarely, taken here, 

 and the Cross Fox, which is much oftener captured in Penn- 

 sylvania are called by naturalists melanotic forms or varieties 

 of the Common Red Fox. 



I know of three Black or Silver Foxes in Pennsylvania, and 

 when last heard from they were all alive, elusive and hearty. 

 One is in Clinton county, another roves near Lake Ganoga, a 

 delightful and romantic place on the Lehigh Valley Railroad 

 in Sullivan county, and the third one lives largely like a good 

 many other poachers, on Ruffed Grouse up in Pike county. 



We find, not infrequently, animals with very defective coats, 

 which fur dealers and trappers call "Sampson Foxes," they 

 have little commercial value. Mr. A. M. Bray ton* says: "Re- 

 garding this peculiar condition of pelage, Mr. Allen is of the 

 opinion that it is the result of a disease which produces a 

 crisp, woolly condition of the fur much as though it had been 

 singed; hence the common name of 'Sampson' or 'Samson' 

 Foxes." Mr. Brayton referring to the Cross Fox, and the 

 Black or Silver Gray Fox, says: "Dr. Coues regards the Cross 

 Fox as a 'special state of semi-melanium' (melanism is the re- 

 sult of an excess of dark coloring matter) of the Common Fox. 

 This variety, common in northern New York, and sometimes 

 as far southward as Pennsylvania and Ohio, receives its name 

 from the presence of a black cross formed by a black band 

 along the back crossed by another on the shoulder. It shades 

 by varying and almost insensible degrees into the Black or 

 Silver Gray Fox. 



"Complete, or nearly complete, melanism distinguishes the 

 Black or Silver Gray Fox. * * * -phe color is a uni- 

 form, lustrous black, with conspicuously white-tipped tail; 

 more or less of the long hairs of the back and flanks, top and 

 sides of head greyish, silvery at the end, giving a silvered ap- 

 pearance to the pelage. The perfectly black pelts are found, 

 chiefly, in high latitudes." 



Such pelts are very valuable. 



•Mammals of Ohio, p. 17. in Geolog. Survey of Ohio. 1S82. 



