SECRETARY'S REPORT. 151 



Family: Canid^. — (Dog Family.) 



Characteristics. — Head lengthened, sharpened to the muzzle; ears 

 pointed, and generally erect ; incisors, six in each jaw ; canines, two in 

 each jaw, powerful, somewhat curved ; molars, generally twelve in the 

 upper and fourteen in the lower jaw, with edges adapted to cutting flesh, 

 of which the food of the animals in this family almost wholly consists ; 

 tongue without the prickles, which the felida; have ; body contracted at 

 the belly, generally clothed with long, hairy fur ; anterior and posterior 

 feet four-toed, the former with a rudimentary thumb, which has generally 

 a claw above the foot; claws of each foot not retractile, as with the 

 felida^ ; tail long and bushy ; teats varying in number, placed on the 

 belly ; young, from two to six at a birth. 



Genus : Vulpes. — (Cuvier.) 



Characteristics. — Head slender, and pointed to the nose ; eyes oblique ; 

 body clothed with soft fur, with long hairs mixed with and extending 

 beyond the fur ; tail (called the bush,) long, covered with long, soft fur, 

 and hair intermixed ; animals in this genus have a fetid odor, are partly 

 or generally nocturnal in their habits, and have from three to six at a 

 birth, (in April, in this State.) 



Vulpes fulvus, (Richardson.) — Common American Fox. 



This species is still common in this State, particularly in the forests 

 of the western and northern part. I have shot a number within seven 

 miles of Boston, within three years, and have known of some being killed 

 this fall, (1861,) in Norfolk County. 



The general character and habits of this animal are so well known 

 that a description of- them is hardly needed here; his cunning is so 

 great that it has passed into a proverb, trapping him being almost im- 

 possible. At the breeding season, and while the young are provided for 

 by the old ones, the cunning in a great measure gives place to the desire 

 to furnish an abundant supply of food for the young. In the summer 

 (June) of 1858, near the house in which I was residing, in Dorchester, 

 a pair of foxes had burrowed and had a litter of four young ; the bur- 

 row was on the south side of a low hill, in a thicket of whortleberry 

 bushes. There would have been some sagacity in the choice of a 

 neighborhood (this locality being surrounded by a number of farms, 

 each with a nice flock of poultry) were it not for the fact, that the little 

 patch of bushes and shrubs where they had chosen their home, was 

 scarcely an acre in extent, and of course more or less familiar to every 

 boy in the neighborhood. Presently, several hens were missing from 

 one flock, and others missing from neighboring flocks, led to inquiries 

 which resulted in the discovery of the fact that a fox had been seen 



