Fur-bearing Foxes. 359 



I find every gradation of colour, placing the cross fox in tile 

 centre of the line, from the black at one end to the red at the 

 other, and I defy the keenest and most experienced fur 

 trader to say, in very many instances, to which of the three 

 varieties of fox a skin actually belongs. The red fox, if we 

 admit this opinion to be correct, may be said to have three 

 distinct types of colouration — No. 1, very bright yellowish-red; 

 No. 2, having a dark cross on the shoulders, the prevailing colour 

 of the sides being a yellow-brown ; No. 3, sometimes nearly 

 black, at others grey and silvery. The Indians positively assert 

 that it is by no means unusual to see these three varieties of 

 colour exhibited in different cubs of the same litter ; and that 

 the black and red varieties constantly interbreed I know to be 

 a fact. I state this from my own actual observation of the 

 animals when I was trapping and hunting on the eastern and 

 western sides of the Rocky Mountains. 



Of shy and crafty habits, few fur-bearing animals are more 

 difficult to trap than foxes. The red men in North and North- 

 West America employ a fall-trap for the capture of foxes, 

 a trap requiring the greatest care both to bait and to set it. 

 Each foot-print must be brushed over in order to destroy every 

 trace of scent, and this obliteration is accomplished by the 

 trapper as he walks backwards from the trap, using for the 

 purpose a large broom, made of cedar boughs. 



The bait, which is usually a skinned ruffed grouse or a 

 rabbit, must not be touched with the fingers. Great care, 

 therefore, is needed during the process of stripping off the skin. 

 The " dead-fall/'' so called, is a heavy tree adjusted to tumble 

 upon the animal's back just behind the shoulders, so soon as it 

 unsets the trap. The "red trappers" have an idea that if a 

 fur-bearing animal be not instantly killed the fur looses all its 

 gloss. The same sort of idea is entertained by the metropolitan 

 ' ' white savages," who brutally skin unfortunate cats whilst they 

 are alive. The inhuman monsters' pitiful excuse is, " if the cat 

 was killed prior to its being flayed the fur would possess no 

 gloss," hence the skin would lose much of its value. For 

 reasons similar to the above North American savages seldom 

 set steel traps for the capture of foxes, martens, or indeed any 

 of the fur-bearers, the value of whose fur in great measure 

 depends upon its silky and lustrous surface. The skins are 

 stripped off in a peculiar manner, a small incision only being 

 made betwixt the hind legs ; the skins are turned with the fur- 

 side inwards during the act of flaying, and they are then dried 

 in the sun, stretched upon a piece of board carefully shaped for 

 the purpose. 



To my mind, the prettiest and sharpest fox caught for the 

 sake of its fur is the kitt-fox, or swift fox (Vulpes velox), which 



