CHAPTER XII. 



FOXES. 



THE varieties and even species of foxes are so great on 

 the North American continent that I doubt much if they 

 have ever been properly classified by the naturalist. Go 

 where you will they are to be found. Of the commoner 

 species, I may safely state that I have killed hundreds. 

 So in the following I will allude only to the principal of 

 them. For a long period I had resided in a part of North- 

 ern Canada that probably supplies as many of those ex- 

 tremely rare animals the Black or Silver Fox as any por- 

 tion of the American continent, and during the entire length 

 of my residence was constantly associated with trappers, 

 fur-traders, et hoc genus omne; so a few remarks on this 

 scarce and valuable animal may not be out of place. 



The fabulous sum that a prime black fox skin is worth 

 causes this animal to be universally sought after ; the tawny 

 redskin or the swarthy half-bred hunter, when he discovers 

 the haunt of one of these beauties, never ceases day or night 

 to ponder over schemes for his capture; the marten and 

 mink traps are for a time neglected, and every artifice, ev- 

 ery trick and ingenuity that ever entered trapper's brain, 

 is at once put into practice. Nor is this fox less wary 

 than his confreres, but quite the reverse ; and I believe in 

 the current opinion that there is no animal more difficult 

 to circumvent. Often of an evening I have listened to the 

 broken English of the snake-eyed aborigines, or the curious 

 patois of the Canadian habitant, recapitulating how they 

 all but succeeded on such and such an occasion, or were re- 



