364 SPORTING ADVENTURES 



eggs, and the carcasses of seals or fish washed ashore by the 

 waves. 



A fox that differs in many ways from its kindred, the red 

 species, is the gray or mane-tailed fox. It differs from it in 

 fact more than the latter does from the wolf. 



The common red fox has a thoroughly canine skull, a long 

 muzzle, and a tail uniformly haired : but the gray has a com- 

 paratively short muzzle, a short and broad head, and the brush 

 has a hidden mane of stiff hairs along the upper side. AVhile 

 it is as large as the common species, it is more stoutly built, 

 and its tail is not so cylindrical. It may be readily known by 

 its grayish colour, even if a person did not notice its peculiarity 

 in form, physiognomy, and its rounded skull. It is literally a 

 woodland animal, for it carefully shuns open ground. Its 

 favourite haunts are in the Southern States, but it is very 

 common in California, Oregon, and other northern wooded 

 regions. It has a length of from twenty-seven to thirty 

 inches; its brush varies from thirteen to eighteen inches in 

 length; its ears project about two and a half inches above 

 the skull; and it has a height of from twelve to fifteen 

 inches. 



It does not burrow like the red fox, but if it does go to earth 

 at all its den has only one entrance, so that it is easily driven 

 out. Its favourite places of concealment are in thickets or the 

 hollow of fallen trees; and if started from these it seeks safety 

 in rank herbage or in the densest part of the forest. I have 

 hunted it sometimes, but I never saw it run to earth, its usual 

 means of escape being to leap on an inclined tree and jump 

 from branch to branch. Though having no retractile claws, 

 yet it can climb small trunks by hugging them, much as a 

 bear would; and it can get to the topmost branches almost as 

 quickly as a raccoon. 



When pressed by the hounds, it is treed as surely as the 

 red fox is run to earth, and is generally brought down 

 from its lofty pinnacle with a riile or shot-gun, as its skin is 

 valued at five dollars. The old fable about the fox that had a 

 thousand tricks with which to bailie its pursuers, while the cat 

 had only one, and that to climb a tree, would not hold good 



