ANIMAL LIFE IN LABRADOR 441 



the bays and come to the outer islands to fish in the summer. 

 They plant their gardens before leaving, and more than 

 one woodchuck, burrowing in under a paling, has lived 

 happily all summer at the expense of the family who are 

 fishing. 



Vulpes rubricosa. The fox has pups of varying colors 

 from red to black. The silver and black coloured ones are 

 now being bred in many places for their pelts, especially in 

 Nova Scotia. They have now got a law in Labrador pro- 

 hibiting the export of live wild foxes, in order to encourage 

 the fox farming industry, which has just begun in 1912. 

 A single pair of the animals alive has fetched as much as 

 $10,000, while 1100 pounds sterling is said to have been 

 paid by the late King Edward for a single skin for his 

 Queen. Two silvers bred together will throw silver pups for 

 certain after three generations. At present they breed only 

 once a year, but it is supposed that in ease and domesticity 

 they may be induced to breed oftener, like their conquerors, 

 the dogs. They are exceedingly sly. I made an attempt 

 to propagate foxes for several seasons before the movement 

 became general, but my animals always lost or destroyed 

 their young. This presumably was due to the fact that we 

 failed to prevent streams of visitors from getting access to 

 the pens. The silvers are always more sly than the reds. 

 I had a red and a patch fox which would scream with joy 

 whenever they saw me approaching the pen, and run to me 

 like a dog. The adult is apparently not so clever as he is 

 supposed to be; though there are many stories of foxes 

 tolling geese and shell birds to shore by either walking up 

 and down and showing only their tail, or lying quietly down 

 and waving it. As I have seen the same result occur 



