238 THE ARCTIC FOX. 



ferences, trifling though they be, may indicate a 

 decided distinction of races, if not species ; for the 

 terminal tip of the tail in foxes is not so indecisive 

 or variable a character as is often asserted. 



Both the races of America and the old continent 

 reside in open deserts adjoining the Frozen Ocean, 

 scattered over Eastern Asia, Siberia, and Lapland, 

 but more numerous on the coasts : they do not 

 descend in Russia so far to the south as in Ame- 

 rica, where they are found nearly to the 50th 

 degree of latitude. Their young are somewhat 

 migratory, more social, sometimes gregarious, and 

 more prolific than true foxes. Their burrows are in 

 sand on the sea coast, very deep, provided with 

 more than one outlet, and furnished with dry moss. 

 In these are littered the young cubs about the end 

 of ]\Iay, amounting in number from six to eight. 

 Russian hunters declare, that sometimes twenty or 

 twenty-five cubs are found in one earth ; but if this 

 be a fact, it would prove only that their social 

 habits admit more than one family in the same re- 

 treat, and that, in that respect also, the Arctic fox 

 approximates to dogs more than foxes. This is the 

 more credible, since it is known, that, like jackals, 

 they form communities of twenty or thirty burrows 

 together, which, under certain circumstances, may 

 have their different outlets communicating with each 

 other. The Pedsi Skins, for by that name they are 

 known in Russia, are of inferior estimation. The 

 flesh of the American is eaten, and, while young, 

 is .declared not unpalateable. 



