The Dog Family — Foxes. 



159 



Kaonschatka Fox surpasses all other varieties in the fine 

 quality of its fur, and the depth and richness of the red 

 color. Some of the Mongolian red foxes are of good 

 quality, but most of the skins received from China are 

 coarse furred and yellowish in color. The Japanese Fox 

 is similar to the Chinese, but the color is somewhat deeper, 

 and since the increase in the value of American Foxes the 

 skins of this animal have been quite extensively used. 

 There was a time when the skin of the Eed Fox was the 

 chief medium of barter in Northeastern Asia, the same as 

 the Beaver skin was in America. 



Young Foxes are covered with a soft, downy, yellowish 

 grey fur at birth, the orange colored hair not beginning 

 to appear iintil they are five or six weeks old. Even the 

 Indian hunters cannot distinguish the pups of the Red 

 Fox at an early age from those of the Cross or Silver 

 Foxes. 



All Foxes have the soles of their feet covered with wool 

 pads in the winter, ho callous spots being then visible. 



Silver Pox. 



In point of value as well as beauty the Black and Silver 

 Foxes come first. The Arctic Foxes come next, then the 

 Cross, and last the Red variety. All the Foxes of this 

 species are hardy animals, cunning and suspicious. They 

 spend but little of the time in their dens on the sandy hill 

 sides, preferring to pass the day curled up among the 

 grasses or weeds, or in a clump of brush, or on the top of 

 a stump. 



