FOXES AND FOX-FARMING — 209 
chin, and feet are black. It is a woodlander, and 
seems incapable of adapting itself to the cleared dis- 
tricts in which the red fox so easily makes itself at 
home; climbs trees almost like a cat, and takes to 
them naturally for safety or to get grapes and per- 
simmons to eat. There, too, it makes its home in a 
hollow stump or log, not digging a burrow, for the 
weather of its southerly habitat, and the later date 
of its breeding, do not require for its young the 
warmth of an underground nursery; and all the year 
round it can supply itself with food by its own cun- 
ning tricks, while the red fox must wander over many 
miles of country. The ground-breeding birds and 
waterfowl and their eggs form its principal fare, 
perhaps in summer, when hens or turkeys straying 
in the woods are likely to be seized; but rarely is 
the poultry disturbed on the home roost, nor can 
such worse depredations as killing young pigs, lambs, 
etc., be laid at its door. Audubon, whose account of 
this to him very familiar animal is circumstantial, 
speaks of it as a ‘pilfering thief’ and of the red fox 
as a ‘daring and cunning plunderer.’ Gray foxes 
will run before hounds only a short distance, doubling 
constantly and for a short time, when they either 
‘hole’ in a tree or climb one; while a red fox may run 
straight eight or ten miles away and then back in a 
parallel course. 
‘‘Extremely interesting is the arctic fox, of the 
polar regions right round the world. It is a shy, 
swift little beast with blunt nose, short rounded ears, 
a very long bushy tail, and the soles of its feet well 
