560 CARNIVORES. 
are characteristic of the eastern districts of the United States, the far rarer 
silver fox is a northern form, a large number of its skins coming from the upper 
reaches of the Mississippi, aud the districts to the north-west of the Missouri 
River. 
So much has been written about the habits of the English fox 
that our remarks on this subject will be brief. Although the fox is 
by no means averse to taking possession of the deserted burrow of a rabbit or a 
badger, it generally excavates its own “earth,” in which it spends a considerable 
portion of its time. As all hunters know, foxes, however, frequently prefer to 
live out in the woods, those with a northern aspect being, it is said, generally 
avoided. Sometimes these animals will prefer a thick hedgerow, or a dry ditch, 
while we have known them to select the tall tussocks of coarse grass in swampy 
Habits, 
AN INTERESTING DISCOVERY. 
meadows as a resting-place; and they have also been found in straw-ricks, where 
it is on record that in one instance the cubs have been born. The breeding-time 
is in April, and the usual number of young in a litter is from four to six. The 
prey of the fox consists, writes Bell, “of hares, rabbits, various kinds of ground 
birds, particularly partridges, of which it destroys great numbers; and it often 
makes its way into the farm-yard, committing sad havoc among the poultry. It 
has been known not unfrequently to carry off a young lamb. When other food 
fails the fox will, however, have recourse to rats and mice, and even frogs and 
worms; while on occasion beetles are largely consumed, and, on the sea-shore, fish, 
crabs, and molluses form a part of its diet. Carrion seems never to come amiss ; 
while the old story of the fox and the grapes alludes to the fruit-eating propensities 
of these animals.” The usual ery of the fox ig a yelping bark. The well-known 
