364 WASHBURN 



Island, situated about sixty miles northeast of Portland, 

 Maine, and stocked it with Alaska silver-grays. These 

 foxes have shown some increase, but the difficulty of 

 catching them in traps not destructive of life has pre- 

 vented the obtaining of definite information concerning 

 them. Although the pelt of the silvery-gray is far more 

 valuable than that of the blue fox, being worth from $100 

 to $200 for reasonably good skins, and rare specimens of 

 the dark variety bringing fabulous prices, still the belief 

 among the owners of the fox islands seems to be that the 

 blue fox is the more profitable for breeding purposes. 

 They are more easily domesticated and are not afraid to go 

 into the box trap which it is necessary to use to catch 

 them without harm; while the silver-gray, though getting 

 reasonably tame so far as coming to the feeding place is 

 concerned, absolutely refuses to go into any door which 

 might be shut on it, or enter any kind of a visible trap, 

 and the male has the reputation of killing the young pups 

 if he finds them unprotected by the mother, which must, 

 from time to time, seek food for herself and young, so 

 that thus far the raising of silver-gray foxes has not been 

 a success where the foxes have been allowed to run to- 

 gether at large. Several successful experiments, how- 

 ever, have been made with the silver-gray foxes in small 

 yards where the females could be separated at the season 

 of bringing forth their young. 



It had previously been supposed that foxes were polyg- 

 amous and, until recently, about one male has been reserved 

 for every five females; but the Semidi Propagating Com- 

 pany is now making experiments at two of its stations with 

 a more equal division of the sexes, and the National Zo- 

 ological Park at Washington, D. C. is also making experi- 

 ments in the pairing of foxes and in the use of foods, which 

 may lead to valuable results. A dozen blue foxes taken 

 from the station at Long Island are kept in wire-fenced 



