OF THE UNITED STATES 463 



between the tails of three hundred foxes, in order that the ani- 

 mals thus dealt with might set fire to the grain-fields of the 

 Philistines. It was not the absolute impossibility of such an 

 occurrence ever having taken place, but the narrator desired to 

 have his readers inform him whether it was the more likely that 

 the animals referred to in the account were Jackals (Can is 

 aureus) or the common foxes of that region (Canis vulpes). He 

 is careful to point out, is this disputant, that near Joppa, about 

 Gaza, and in Galilee, that the Jackals are far more abundant 

 than the foxes. Speaking of foxes, there are quite a number of 

 them in our United States fauna. For example there is the com- 

 mon Red Fox (Vulpes f. fulvus), a larger and a handsomer ani- 

 mal than the common fox of Europe, shown in Figure 126 of the 

 present chapter, and with somewhat different habits. 



We also have in Arctic America and northern United States 

 the Silver or Black Fox (V. f. argentatus), and the Cross Fox (V. 

 f. decussatus), while confined in the Arctic regions we have the 

 Arctic Fox (T. lagopus). In suitable localities in the west one 

 meets with the Kit or Swift Fox (V. velox), and the Prairie Fox 

 (V. macrurus), while on the Calif ornian coast occurs the Coast 

 Gray Fox, belonging to a different genus (Urocyon v. littoral is), 

 This genus also contains another species of general distribution 

 in this country southward as far as Costa Rica; I refer to the 

 Gray Fox (U. mrginianus). Doubtless there are other varieties 

 that have been found, or are yet to reward the researches of the 

 explorer. Coyotes are more closely related to the wolves (Canis 

 'latrans), as the common gray wolf of North America (C. lupus 

 griseo-albus) . What has been written about foxes would cer- 

 tainly fill many goodly volumes, and these cunning animals 

 surely deserve to have their exploits thus preserved. There are 

 about thirty or thirty-five species of Vulpes known, and by no 

 means a few good subspecies. 



All of these animals of which I have been writing about here 

 belong to the very interesting group of dog-like forms, constitut- 

 ing the family Canidce. As a whole this group or section has been 

 termed by naturalists the Cynoidea, it being one of the divisions 

 of the true order of the carnivora. To it belong all the breeds 

 of the common domestic dogs, the origin of which is still a mat- 

 ter of doubt in the minds of mammalogists. Then it includes the 

 fine series of wolves and foxes of various parts of the w r orld as 

 well as certain types of small and elegant fox-like animals of 



