252 WILD SCENES AND WILD HUNTERS. 



spoken of; and as some of them, as we have already said, 

 were Cross Foxes, and others Red Foxes, this has settled the 

 question in our minds that both the Cross Fox and the Black 

 Fox are mere varieties of the Red. 



Here I will dismiss this question, premising the conviction 

 confirmed out of my own experience by the facts given above, 

 that the three varieties, the Black, Cross and Red Foxes, will 

 be found to be about as nearly identical as three specimens 

 of the common American Skunk, taken from the same bed, 

 one of which will be banded, another barred, and another 

 mottled. 



But the Editors of the Quadrupeds of America, have been, 

 after some hesitation, bold enough to go with Cuvier in a most 

 decided innovation upon the old formulas of classification. 



They say, the characters of this genus difi"er so slightly 

 from those of the genus canis, that they were induced to pause 

 before removing it from the sub-genus in which it had so 

 long remained. 



I do not perceive that there was any special reason for 

 doubt about the matter, for I have always been surprised that 

 the foxes have not been recognized by Naturalists through all 

 time as a separate genus. The common sense of mankind 

 has always so placed them, but it seems that the common 

 sense of Naturalists has been something difi'erent. 



Nobody but a technicalist was ever satisfied with seeing the 

 fox ranked as a sub-genus of canis. Apart from slight physi- 

 cal coincidents, it is so distinct in habits, character, &c., that 

 we could quite as readily be content to see the humming-bird 

 classed as a moth ! There is about as much reason for the 

 one as the other. The truth seems to me to be, that as the 

 humming-bird, though distinct in its own character, forms 

 the connecting link between insects and birds, so does the 

 fox that between the genera canis and lynx ; which last, it 

 will be remembered, was once, in a like manner, classed as 

 a Feline. 



