FOXES. 



563 



Arctic Fox. 



Widely different from all the other species is the Arctic fox (C. 

 lagopus), characterised by the diflerence between its summer and 

 winter dress, as well as by certain peculiarities in its form and habits. This 

 species, which appears to inhabit nearly the whole of the known Arctic lands, 

 descending in America to latitude 50', and in the Old World to 60°, has a less 

 pointed muzzle, and much shorter and more rounded ears than any other fox, while 

 the hinder-parts of the cheeks are bordered with a kind of ruft" of long hairs, and 

 the soles of the feet are covered with a thick coat of woolly hair, which is most 

 developed in winter. In the summer dress the hair is of modei'ate length, and is 

 frequently of a brown or dull rufous colour on the head, back, outer sides of the 

 limbs and tail: the under-parts being yellowisli white. The under-fur is bluish 



ARCTIC FOX IN oCMMEH lIHJiSS (J uat. size). 



grey, and the roots of the long hairs are also of the same tint ; and when this 

 bluish grey extends farther up the hairs than usual the general colour of the fur 

 is of the same hue. In other cases, as in the accompanying illustration, the whole 

 of the upper-parts and the outer sides of the limbs are bluish grey, while the flanks 

 and under-parts are almost white. 



With the assumption of the winter dress the fur becomes longer and thicker, 

 and the white hairs which are scattered through the summer coat gradually increase 

 in number, at the same time as the tips of the other hairs become white, until 

 the whole length of each hair is of that colour. The animal is then completely 

 clad in white, the naked tip of the nose being, however, black, wliile in certain 

 cases the extremity of the tail may also be black. A .specimen in the pure white 

 winter dress is represented in the foreground of our second illustration. This 

 winter change of colour is, liowever, by no means of con.stant occurrence ; grey 

 hairs sometimes largely mingling with the white, while at other times the prevalent 

 hue of the fur is a uniform bluish gi'ey, as sliown in the upper figure of our second 



