18 HOMES WITHOUT HANDS. 



chamber already mentioned. The reader will see, therefore, that 

 in some respects the habitation of the Arctic Fox corresponds 

 with that of the mole, both having a kind of fortress from which 

 a number of passages lead in different directions, and the 

 nursery being in both instances separate from the general 

 habitation. 



Five or six young ones are mostly bred in these subterranean 

 nurseries ; and in the outer chamber, and in several of the x^as- 

 sages that lead to it, are placed good stores of food. In one 

 such nest were found many bodies of two species of lemming, 

 and several stoats ; and the abvmdance of bones belonging to 

 hares, fishes, and ducks, showed that the wants of the young 

 Foxes had been amply supplied. 



This Fox is a very intelligent animal, though the accounts of 

 the earlier Arctic voyagers would lead the reader to imagine that 

 it was peculiarly stupid. It could be caught without the least 

 difficulty ; any rough contrivance answered for a trap, and any 

 number of Foxes might be taien in it. The hunter might make 

 a trap and bait it while the animal looked on, and as soon as he 

 retired, the Fox would walk into the snare. Fifteen have thus 

 been taken in four hours in a single trap. 



Other voyagers tell very different tales of the same animal. 

 Their note-books aboimd in anecdotes of its exceeding craft, 

 and the difficulty of catching it; and they tell us how the 

 Arctic Foxes learned to remove the baits without falling into 

 the traps, or being shot by the spring-guns. The reason is 

 evident. Those who commemorate its stupidity are the earlier 

 voyagers — ^those who describe its craft are the later travellers. 

 Before the advent of the former, the Foxes knew nothing of the 

 European, his traps and his guns, and had no suspicion that a 

 bait was meant for any other purpose than to be eaten. Before 

 the European came into these northern regions, the Fox was very 

 little molested ; but when men found that its skin was a little 

 fortune, and that its flesh was generally eatable, the Fox was 

 subjected to a merciless persecution. For, even in its ordinary 

 state, the skin of the Arctic Fox is in great favour as a fur ; but 

 when it is bleached by the dread cold of the regions in which the 

 animal resides, and is of a pure snowy whiteness down to the very 

 roots of the hair, it is so exceedingly costly, that a mantle made 

 of that fur is only to be purchased by millionaires, or placed on 



