90 CAENIVORA. 



occasionally in the back. In the summer the colour is 

 said to be sometimes drab. The tail is thickly furred and 

 about a foot long ; the toes are provided with five rather 

 long white or dark claws, and the pads of the feet are 

 covered with thick hair to protect them from the ice. The 

 nose is black, and the whiskers white. In the young 

 animal the colour is usually drab-blue, rather darker 

 at the back. 



The fur is long, close, and of a beautiful white, but 

 sometimes it is yellowish or quite yellow ; the under fur 

 is sometimes white and sometimes bluish. 



The fur until recent years was of little value, but 

 now it is much admired, and exceeds the price of Eed 

 Fox. It is dyed light brown, blue, dark brown, black, 

 imitation Silver Fox, etc. ; it is made up into muffs, 

 trimmings, etc., and its tail makes excellent boas. In 

 the natural state it also makes excellent wrappers or 

 sleigh-robes. 



In 1816 lOd. to 8s. were paid; but now (1891) the 

 price ranges from 2s. 6d. to 16s. 9d. ; 3,704 being 

 imported by the Hudson's Bay Company, and 5,366 by 

 the Alaska Company and others, making a total, with 

 a few other importations, of about 9,000 skins in 1891. 

 Nine hundred and eighty-nine White Fox skins were 

 sold in 1891 by the Eoyal Greenland Company of 

 Copenhagen. 



Mr. Fielden, in the " Voyage to the Polar Sea," 

 p. 193, says : — " The Arctic Fox decreases in numbers as 

 we proceed up Smith Sound. — At Floeberg Eeach, the 

 winter quarters of the Alert, footprints of the few were 

 occasionally seen in the snow ; but it was not till 

 July 13, 1876, that I obtained a specimen in the flesh. — 

 Parr fired at it, when it dropped down, and crawled 

 below some large rocks ; out rushed the female from its 



