104 LLOYDS NATURAL HISTORY. 



living in thickets or on cultivated land in such shelter as it can 

 find ready to hand. 



In conclusion, it may be mentioned that there has besn 

 much discussion as to whether the Fox will interbreed with the 

 Domestic Dog. On this point Mr. Trevor-Battye write* : " I 

 admit that this is hard to prove. But I myself believe in such 

 instances. I know a Dog at this moment at Pett, near Has- 

 tings, which is credited with being the offspring of such a 

 combination. And anyone who saw him would, I will under- 

 take to say, believe it without proof. It leans to the Fox in 

 its habits, the texture of its hair, its brush, and its voice, which 

 it seldom uses. It is beyond question that the North Ameri- 

 can Indians, the Crees for example, with whom I stayed for 

 some time, are in the constant habit of tying up their 4ogs 

 away in the bush, in order that they may pair with the Wolves, 

 and the morose result of this alliance every hunter knows." 

 On the other hand, although such interbreeding has often been 

 asserted to have occurred, several such alleged instances having 

 recently been recorded in the sporting papers, in the opinion 

 of some of those best qualified to give an authoritative judg- 

 ment on the subject, such unions are quite unknown. Mr. W. 

 E. de Winton, however, writes to me on this subject : " In the 

 pack of Otter-hounds hunted by the late Hon. Geoffrey Hill, 

 there was one which, he told me, was a cross by a Prairie 

 ^Volf. In the Worcester Museum is an animal, killed near 

 Ledbury about two years ago, which is undoubtedly a cross 

 between a Fox and a Dog. It was shot wild, and can only be 

 the result of such an union." 



MARTENS, WEASELS, OTTERS, ETC. FAMILY 

 MUSTELID^. 



The third great Family of Carnivores represented in the 

 British Isles, which includes the Martens, Weasels, Badgers, 



