FOXES IX THE NORTH. 565 



who pay for them from seventy to one hundred roubles a-piece. 

 Very few ever reach the European market. 



Among those Carnivora which are able to accommodate themselves 

 to the severest climates, I may mention the Foxes. These animals 

 attire themselves, under the Polar latitudes, in a fur of sufficient 

 thickness to endure the intense cold they are required to support ; 

 and this fur is esteemed among the most precious varieties, under the 

 names of Isatis skin, White Fox, Black, Blue, and Tricoloured Fox- 

 skins. The shades vary according to Reynard's habitat, his age, and 

 also the season ; they correspond in like manner to the differences of 

 race, but not to the differences of species. The most valuable skins 

 are obtained from those foxes which belong to very cold countries ; 

 and it seems that as they recede from a certain latitude, they lose 

 their value. "Some Blue Foxes were killed by our hunters," says 

 Madame Leonie d'Aunet, " which were stunted and ugly. The 

 Spitzbergen foxes do not in any respect resemble the foxes of Iceland 

 or Siberia, whose fur is so beautiful and in such high repute. That 

 they may be thoroughly protected from the cold, they do not wear 

 upon their bodies a fur so much as several thick folds or layers of 

 veiy thick hair, so intermingled and threaded that it is rather a 

 mattress than a coat of fur. Moreover, instead of being of a some- 

 what tawny colour, like the Iceland foxes, they are of an ashen-gray. 

 Their skin, nevertheless, is excellently adapted for making carpets." 



I see no intermediaries between the small Carnivora we have just 

 passed in review, and the formidable tyrant of the icy Deserts, the 

 Polar or Marine Bear ( Ursus marinus), popularly known as ( the 

 White Bear ; an improper appellation, as it confounds the Bear of the 

 Arctic Seas with the Albino variety of the Common Bear. 



The former constitutes a perfectly distinct species, whose charac- 

 teristics, apart from the yellowish-white colour of his rich soft fur, 

 are a flattened and elongated head, a long neck, high legs, and feet 

 whose conformation is admirably adapted to the habitat and amphi- 

 bious existence of the animal. In fact, the sole of each foot is gar- 



