252 WILD SCENES AND WILD HUNTERS. 
spoken of; and as some of them, as we have already said, 
were Cross Foxes, and others Red Foxes, this has settled the 
question in our minds that both the Cross Fox and the Black 
Fox are mere varieties of the Red. 
Here I will dismiss this question, premising the conviction 
confirmed out of my own experience by the facts given above, 
that the three varieties, the Black, Cross and Red Foxes, will 
be found to be about as nearly identical as three specimens 
of the common American Skunk, taken from the same bed, 
one of which will be banded, another barred, and another 
mottled. 
But the Editors of the Quadrupeds of America, have been, 
after some hesitation, bold enough to go with Cuvier in a most 
decided innovation upon the old formulas of classification. 
They say, the characters of this genus differ so slightly 
from those of the genus canis, that they were induced to pause 
before removing it from the sub-genus in which it had so 
long remained. 
I do not perceive. that there was any special reason for 
doubt about the matter, for I have always been surprised that 
the foxes have not been recognized by Naturalists through alt 
time as'a separate genus. The common sense of mankind 
has always so placed them, but it seems that the common 
sense of Naturalists has been something different. 
Nobody but a technicalist was ever satisfied with seeing the 
fox ranked as a sub-genus of canis. Apart from slight physi- 
cal coincidents, it is so distinct in habits, character, &c., that 
we could quite as readily be content to see the humming-bird 
classed as a moth! There is about as much reason for the 
one as the other. The truth seems to me to be, that as the 
humming-bird, though distinct in its own character, forms 
the connecting link between insects and birds, so does the 
fox that between the genera canis and lynx; which last, it 
will be remembered, was once, in a like manner, classed as 
a Feline. 
