THE LARGER NORTH AMERICAN MAMMALS 



425 



WHITE, OR ARCTIC, FOX (Alopex 

 lagopus) 



The Arctic fox, clothed in long, fluffy white 

 fur, is an extremely handsome animal, about 

 two-thirds the size of the common red fox. It 

 is a circumpolar species, which in America 

 ranges over all the barren grounds beyond the 

 limit of trees, including the coastal belt of 

 tundra from the Peninsula of Alaska to Ber- 

 ing Straits, the Arctic islands, and the frozen 

 sea to beyond 83 degrees of latitude. 



The blue fox of commerce is a color phase 

 of this species, usually of sporadic occurrence, 

 like the black phase of the red fox. The white 

 fox makes its burrow either in a dry mound, 

 under a large rock, or in the snow, where its 

 young are brought forth and cared for with 

 the devotion which appears to characterize all 

 foxes. 



How this small and delicately formed animal 

 manages to sustain life under the rigorous 

 winter conditions of the far north has always 

 been a mystery to me. I have seen its tracks 

 on the sea ice miles from shore. It regularly 

 wanders far and wide over these desolate icy 

 wastes, which can offer only the most remote 

 chance for food. However, it appears to thrive, 

 with other animal life, even where months of 

 continuous night follow the long summer day. 



The food of the Arctic fox includes nearly 

 all species of the wild-fowl which each summer 

 swarm into the far North to breed. There on 

 the tundras congregate myriads of ducks, 

 geese, and waders, while on the cliffs and 

 rocky islands are countless gulls and other 

 water birds. In winter they find lemmings and 

 other northern mice, occasional Arctic hares, 

 and ptarmigan, as well as fragments of prey 

 left by Arctic wolves or polar bears. Now 

 and then the carcass of a whale is stranded or 

 frozen in the ice, furnishing an abundance of 

 food, sometimes for a year or more, to the 

 foxes which gather about it from a great dis- 

 tance. 



Perhaps owing to its limited experience with 

 man, the northern animal is much less sus- 

 picious than the southern red fox. During 

 winter sledge trips in Alaska I frequently had 

 two or three of them gather about my open 

 camp on the coast, apparently fascinated by 

 the little camp-fire of driftwood. They would 

 sit about, near by in the snow, for an hour or 

 two in the evening, every now and then utter- 

 ing weak, husky barks like small dogs. 



The summer of 1881, when we landed from 

 the Corwin on Herald Island, northwest of 

 Bering Straits, we found many white foxes 

 living in burrows under large scattered rocks 

 on the plateau summit. They had never seen 

 men before and our presence excited their 

 most intense interest and curiosity. One and 

 sometimes two of them followed closely at my 

 heels wherever I went, and when I stopped to 

 make notes or look about, sat down and 

 watched me with absurd gravity. Now and 

 then one at a distance would mount a rock to 

 get a better view of the stranger. 



On returning to the ship, I remembered that 



my notebook had been left on a large rock 

 over a fox den, on the island, and at once went 

 back for it. I had been gone only a short 

 time, but no trace of the book could be found 

 on or about the rock, and it was evident that 

 the owner of the den had confiscated it. Sev- 

 eral other foxes sat about viewing my search 

 with interest and when I left followed me to 

 the edge of the island. A nearly grown young 

 one kept on the Corwin was extraordinarily 

 intelligent, inquisitive, and mischievous, and 

 afforded all of us much amusement and occa- 

 sional exasperation. 



PRIBILOF BLUE FOX (Alopex lagopus 

 pribilofensis) 



The blue fox is a color phase of the Arctic 

 white fox and may occur anywhere in the 

 range of the typical animal. In fact, the blue 

 phase bears the same relationship to the white 

 that the black phase does to the red fox. In 

 the Pribilof, or Fur Seal, Islands of Alaska, 

 however, through the influence of favorable 

 climatic conditions, assisted by artificial selec- 

 tion in weeding out white animals, the blue 

 phase has become the resident form. Isola- 

 tion on these islands has developed other char- 

 acters also which, with the prevailing color, 

 render the Pribilof animal a distinct geo- 

 graphic race of the white species. A blue fox 

 is also the prevailing resident animal in Ice- 

 land. 



In years when fur-seals were killed in con- 

 siderable numbers on the Pribilofs their car- 

 casses remained on the killing grounds as a 

 never-failing store of food through the winter. 

 During summer there is an abundance of nest- 

 ing water-fowl, and throughout the year there 

 are mice on land and the products of the sea 

 along shore. As a result the foxes have thrived 

 amazingly and several hundred skins have been 

 produced a year. With the lessening number 

 of seals now being killed on the islands and 

 the resulting scarcity of winter food, the fate 

 of the foxes is somewhat in doubt. The Prib- 

 ilof skins are of high market value, bringing 

 from $40 to $150 each in the London market. 



Stock from the Pribilofs has been intro- 

 duced on a number of the Aleutians and other 

 Alaskan islands for fur-farming purposes. The 

 value of these fur-bearers is so great that soe- 

 cial effort should be made not only to keep up 

 the stock on the islands, but still further to 

 improve it. 



The Pribilof foxes have from five to eleven 

 young, which are usually born above ground 

 and are later carried to the shelter of dens 

 dug in the open or under the shelter of a rock. 

 Foxes have become so accustomed to people 

 on these islands that they have little fear and 

 come about boldly to satisfy their curiosity or 

 to seek for food. They often show an amus- 

 ing interest in the doings of any one who in- 

 vades the more remote parts of their domain. 

 White animals born on the islands or coming 

 in by chance when the pack ice touches there 

 in winter are killed, whenever possible, in order 

 to hold the blue strain true. 



