FOX 45 



white, the breast and abdomen grey, the outer side of the ears black, and the tip 

 of the tail white or whitish. 



Evidence has been gradually accumulating that in the ancestors of several 

 groups of mammals the skin was protected by a bony or horny armour. One of 

 the animals retaining vestiges of such an armour is the fox, in whose skin has 

 been detected a structure indicating the presence of the ancestral forms of an 

 imbricating panoply of scales arranged like the tiles on a roof. Under the micro- 

 scope the skin displays very clearly a pattern representing the implantation of 

 such a scaly covering ; while the mode of arrangement of the hairs lends further 

 support to the evidence afforded by the structure of the skin. If these inductions 

 be well established — and there seems little doubt that they are so — the fox carries 

 about with him indisputable evidence of his descent from mail-clad ancestors, who 

 in turn must seemingly have inherited their panoply direct from still earlier 

 reptilian progenitors. Such progenitors were in all probability the mammal-like 

 reptiles of the Trias of South Africa, from which the primitive, or creodont, 

 carnivora of the Eocene Tertiary are almost certainly descended. 



It would seem, however, that in other cases there was a fresh development of 

 armour among early mammals long after their complete emancipation from the 

 reptilian type. The primitive whales, or zeuglodonts, appear, for instance, to have 

 been heavily armoured, probably to protect them from the breakers as they 

 gradually adapted themselves to a pelagic life. Since, however, these primitive 

 whales are now known to be the descendants of the primitive carnivora, they 

 probably derived the rudiments of their armour from the latter, instead of, as has 

 been supposed, developing it entirely de novo. 



In many parts of Europe there are two differently coloured varieties of 

 foxes, one of which is called the birch-fox, or red fox, and the other the black 

 or coal fox. Both phases live in the same districts and pair with each other, 

 although they are distinctly different in their colouring. The red fox, whose 

 prevailing colour is a yellowish grey, has a white stripe along the upper lip 

 and round the corners of his mouth, which runs up the cheeks in the shape of 

 a sickle, becomes a little wider at the lower jaw across the chin and throat, and 

 ends in a point at the fore-legs. The black fox has the same marking, but is 

 of a blackish grey. The close, thick brown hair of the red fox is very short 

 just above the nose, but higher up it becomes gradually longer, and is marked 

 with little white lines. The black fox, on the other hand, has ashy grey hair 

 without any white. The red fox has yellowish red hair on the upper part of 

 the neck, on a portion of the back, and on the shoulders, while the lower parts 

 of the loins are brownish yellow, the sides of the abdomen light yellow or whitish, 

 and the rest of the hair on the back grey or brown. Close above the tail is a 

 red-brown stripe with a light yellow edge. The black fox is here of a darker 

 colour, and the loins are an ashy grey. As in other members of the family, 

 the tail of the fox has on its upper surface, about 2£ inches from the root, a 

 small scent-gland, overgrown with bristly hair of a brown-red colour. In the red 

 fox the tail has a pure white tip, in the black fox a dark grey one. The 

 fore-feet of the red fox are yellow, those of the black fox brownish red ; those 

 of the red fox are marked with a whitish stripe, tHose of the black fox with a 



