VULPES VUIXiARIS rENNSVLVANICUS. ^5 



VULPES VULGARIS PENNSYLVANICUS (Hodd.) Coues. 

 Fox; Red Fox; Cross Fox; Silver Fox; Black Fox. 



The common Fox is a tolerably abundant resident in the " North 

 Woods," and its short bark is often heard, after nightfall, by parties 

 encamped about our lakes. 



He is both nocturnal and diurnal in habits, and preys upon skunks, 

 woodchucks, muskrats, hares, rabbits, squirrels, mice, and small birds 

 and eggs. He is a well-known and much-dreaded depredator of the 

 poultry-yard, destroying, with equal alacrity, turkeys, ducks, geese, 

 hens, chickens, and doves ; and has been known to make off with 

 young lambs. He will also eat carrion, and even fish, and is said to 

 be fond of ripe grapes and strawberries. 



The cunning of the Fox is proverbial. Wily, crafty, and sagacious, 

 to a degree almost beyond credibility, he defies the superior skill and 

 intelligence of man, and meets, with shrewd manceuvre and subtle 

 stratagem, all attempts at his extermination. He lives and thrives 

 and multiplies in our very midst, and is as common in many of the 

 thickly setded portions of the State as in the remotest depths of the 

 primeval forests. 



He is hunted both for pleasure and profit, and for the gratification 

 of a malicious spite that seems to be inherent in man for his destruc- 

 tion. He is trapped for where his presence is suspected, hounded 

 when his foot-prints are seen on the snow, dug out when found in 

 his subterranean burrow, and shot at when surprised at any of his 

 tricks, from the first hour of his youthful gambols till the time that he 

 finally succumbs before man's combined and persistent efforts to- 

 ward his annihilation. Nevertheless, his race survives, and I have 

 yet to be convinced that his numbers have undergone any very ma- 

 terial diminution during the last hundred years. 



The influence of natural selection in developing hereditary habits 

 for the protection of the species is well exemplified in this animal, for 

 he seems familiar, from earliest infancy, with the multifarious contri- 



