VARIETIES OF THE RED FOX 
specific names; but it is probable that the “common red fox” 
of Europe, Africa, Asia (south to and including the Hima- 
layas), of Japan, and of all North America, form oniy american 
one ancient and diversified species, whose ancestors Red Fo*- 
were of a circumpolar stock. Our American form seems 
especially variable, since its typical yellowish red, darkest on 
the back and shoulders, may be very bright or very pale; or 
may have the markings on the spine and withers very dark and 
distinct, making it a “cross fox,” or be totally black with a 
white-tipped tail; or black with the tips of most of the hairs 
white, giving the fur a frosted or “silver” appearance. Such 
extreme variations are rare, and, making the pelt very hand- 
some, are highly prized by furriers; but they may occur in 
the same litter with normally reddish ones. It must also be 
remembered that a good many English red foxes have been 
imported and turned loose in the eastern United States, par- 
ticularly in Maryland, to increase the supply for the sport of 
fox hunting, and also in response to a popular idea that the 
British fox, as a result of inherited experience, knows how to 
play his end of the game better than does his American cousin. 
This sport has been practiced after the British fashion in the 
Middle South since Colonial times, and has produced a special 
American strain of fox hounds. 
Foxes everywhere are naturally burrowers and nocturnal 
hunters of ground-nesting birds from ducks and geese to spar- 
rows, and of their eggs; rodents of every sort, frogs, lizards, 
insects, and in summer and autumn fruit and berries. Some 
of the prey is got by running it down, for the fox is fleet; some 
by digging it out of its underground holes; some by stalking 
it with crafty caution; some by lying apparently dead until 
the victim approaches near enough to be seized by a catlike 
pounce. These are the essential tactics of its food getting 
in all lands, the fare and the method varying with the coun- 
try; and endless stratagems match the native precautions of 
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