ORDER CARNASSIER. 369 



Linnaeus, Erxleben, and Gmelin, have not admitted it as a 

 species, and the two last have confounded it with the 

 Canis Lycaon. All that Pennant has said upon the sub- 

 ject is founded on the relations of Charlevoix and Du- 

 Pratz. It is to M. Geoffroy St. Hilaire that we are in- 

 debted for an exact description of the Canis Argentatus, 

 which was given from a stuffed specimen in the French 

 Museum. The animal itself was brought from North 

 America. 



This animal is of the size of the ordinary Fox, and its 

 entire organization is precisely similar to that of the same 

 animal. The organs of sense, of motion, of dentition, and 

 of generation, are the same, and its gait and movements 

 exactly alike. It walks like the Canis Vulpes, with its 

 head and tail depressed. Its glances are pregnant with 

 distrust and penetration, and, in a word, it would be com- 

 pletely our European Fox, if it were fawn-coloured instead 

 of black. It is, altogether, of this latter colour, with which 

 is mixed, in certain points, and in greater or less propor- 

 tions, a small quantity of white. The extremity of the 

 tail is almost entirely of this last colour, the fore part of 

 the head and the sides are whitish, and some white hairs 

 are detached, as it were, from all the other parts of the fur, 

 and have no other effect than to set off to better advantage 

 the lustrous brilliancy of the black, of which it is generally 

 composed. The hair of the body and of the tail is long 

 and tufted. Silken hairs, widely dispersed, extremely fine, 

 and of a gray, approaching to black, form the immediate 

 covering of the skin, and the colour of the animal is owing 

 to silken hairs, which are generally of a brilliant black, 

 though occasionally terminated by a white point, and some- 

 times, but rarely, altogether white. On the paws, the hair 

 is short, and on the muzzle still more so. The eyes are 

 yellowish. 



This animal plays in the manner of Dogs, and expresses, 



