854 Fur-hearing Foxes. 



elapse before any such transformation is needed in regard to 

 the coinage of these realms ! 



Previously to Newton'' s appointment as 'Warden of the 

 Mint, his sole income is stated to have been derived from his 

 Lucasian professorship, and from the produce of the manor of 

 Woolsthorpe, the combined amount of which, though aided by 

 habits remarkably temperate and abstemious, ill accorded with 

 his natural generosity of disposition, and prevented his reliev- 

 ing the wants of his poor relations. 



In proof of Newton's straitened circumstances before 

 receiving the wardenship of the Mint, it may be adduced that 

 there now exists an entry in the " Journal of the Royal 

 Society," dated January 28, 1674 — 5, whereby he is excused 

 from making the customary payment of one shilling a week, 

 " on account of his low circumstances, as he represented.'''' 



Newton received his knighthood in 1705, at the hands of 

 Queen Anne ; and at his decease, which took place at Ken- 

 sington on the 20th March, 1727, he had a personal estate 

 valued at £32,000. At the time of his death Sir Isaac had 

 attained the age of eighty-five. To him may justly be applied 

 the words of the ancient poet : — 



" Qui genus humanum ingenio superavit, et omnes, 

 Eestinxit ; stellas exorfcus uti aBtherius sol." 



F UK-BEAK IN G FOXES. 



BY JOHN KEAST LOED, F.Z.S. 



About seventy-five thousand fox skins of various kinds are 

 sold at auction annually in London, by the different fur com- 

 panies. As we contemplate these figures, we may well feel 

 astonished, and fail to understand from whence so many skins 

 are procured, or how it happeus that the entire race of foxes 

 escape being utterly exterminated. Nevertheless, wonder as 

 we may, the fact stands before us, that this wholesale 

 destruction of animal life has been continued year after year — 

 we may almost say — since the fur trade commenced in North 

 America, and yet the demand remains at a steady average 

 rate, and the needful supply as constantly arrives to meet it. 



Eight varieties of the sub-family Vulpince are trapped or 

 otherwise destroyed, that their jackets may supply the fur- 

 market — the black or silver fox, the cross, red, white, blue, 

 grey, kitt, and corsac-fox. 



