THE BLUE FOX 213 



were in the best condition and their fur was thickest. The three- 

 year-olds seemed to be the best, as is also true of the [common] 

 foxes. In January and February their fur is too thick; in April 

 and May they begin to lose their hair; in June and July they 

 only had the wool on them and looked as if they were going about 

 in shirts. In June they give birth to their young, nine to ten 

 cubs, in caves and crevasses. They specially like to have their 

 lairs up in the mountains or on the edge of the mountains. 

 Their young ones they love so deeply that they betray the 

 location of their burrows by barking at human beings like dogs 

 in order to keep them from their young. This explains the 

 origin of the name pesets (little dog), by which name the Russians 

 call this animal. As soon as they notice that their burrow has 

 been discovered they carry away their young in their mouths if 

 not disturbed and endeavor to conceal them at a more secluded 

 place. If you kill the young the mothers follow you with loud 

 howling day and night for a hundred versts or more and do not 

 desist until they have played a trick on [you], their enemy, or 

 have been killed themselves. 



They stink much worse than the red foxes. In rutting time 

 they buck day and night and like dogs bite each other cruelly 

 for jealousy. Copulation itself takes place amid much cater- 

 wauling like cats. When there is a storm and much snow falls 

 they dig into the snow, roll into a ball like dogs, and lie there as 

 long as the bad weather lasts. When winter has set in for good 

 they always have their burrows and holes in the snow in deep 

 valleys, at sources and rivers. They are very agile at swimming 

 across rivers. In addition to [securing] what is cast up by the sea 

 or animals that have died they also catch the sea birds that have 

 settled on the cliffs to sleep, and sometimes they clean up a 

 whole rockfull. I once saw a large sea eagle, which had caught a 

 fox in his talons and risen high in the air with him, drop him 

 on the rocky ground and then devour him."'' The white ger- 



" This and the next sentence, which, in the reversal of the struggle 

 described, fail to carry out the previous argument, represent observations 



