improvement. Lt ought for instance to be a matter of routine, 

 that every fox introduced from another locality should undergo 

 before admission a regular period of quarantine. Not only so, 

 but the foxes should be more rigidly isolated than at present from 

 every contact, direct or indirect, with other animals. It is not 

 definitely known what species are, and what are not, capable of 

 harboring or transmitting the specific virus of distemper; but 

 it would obviously be the part of wisdom to exclude every kind 

 of animal, domesticated or wild, not only from the neighbourhood 

 of the fox ranch, but also from the society of the keeper. 



Should distemper once make its appearance in a ranch the 

 rrlost strenuous steps must be taken to prevent its spread. The 

 only hope of doing so, apart from. the use, as yet in its experimental 

 stage, of protective vaccines, lies in the prompt and complete 

 isolation of the affected animals, and the thorough disinfection 

 of their pens. Such a procedure presupposes of course the pos- 

 session by -the infected ranch of a special group of pens, separated 

 from its regular system, and capable of serving on occasion as a 

 quarantine station, an isolation hospital, or a special nursery for 

 backward pups. Every fox-breeder will probably admit the 

 desirability of such an arrangement; but there are few as yet who 

 have put it into operation. ' 



2. inteStin/VL parasites. 



(a) Round Worms. — The majority of the fox pups on Prince 

 Edward Island would appear to become infected by the round 

 worm, several varieties of which have been encountered locally, 

 almost as soon as they are born. How far this almost universal 

 infection is responsible, under existing conditions, for the high 

 percentage of loss among the youngest pups, it is not very easy 

 to say. It has become part of the regular routine of nearly every 

 ranch to administer to each pup, at the end of the 3rd and 4th, 

 and again at about the eighth week of life, some one or other of 

 the various vermicidal preparations upon the market. Many 

 ranchers state that since this practice has been generally adopted 

 the round worm no longer constitutes a serious problem; others 

 regard it still as their most formidable enemy. My own impres- 

 sion is that the latter view is more probably the correct one, and 

 that many of the pups found dead in their nests, or carried out 

 74506—2 3 



