1876. ] Former Range of New England Mammals. 713 
family show that between the years 1654 and 1674 the Pynchons 
packed and exported to England from the Connecticut Valley, 
among other peltries, “ large quantities of fox skins.” 1 The first 
settlers of Maine and New Hampshire also found the fox there 
ingreat abundance. ‘These various references to the fox in New 
England also show that its several varieties, as the ‘ black,” ? 
“gray,” and “ cross” foxes, were of frequent occurrence as far 
south as Massachusetts and New York. 
This shows conclusively that while English foxes may have 
been taken to America and turned loose by the early colonists, 
the more northerly portions of the Atlantic coast region abounded 
with this animal long before its reported importation from En- 
gland, and hence that the theory that the red fox of North Amer- 
ica is of recent European origin is wholly unfounded. Were there 
not direct evidence to the contrary, it is highly improbable that 
the millions of foxes existing throughout the northern half of the 
continent, where this animal was found in great abundance wher- 
ever the first explorers penetrated, could have originated from 
_ the few imported to New England and Maryland in the seven- 
teenth and eighteenth centuries, and thence spread throughout 
the vast interior, westward to the Pacific and northward to the 
arctic circle. 
The apparent absence of its bones, k 
of Pennsylvania, where have been found the semi-fossil remains 
of nearly all the other existing mammals of that region, together 
with its known absence or at least great scarcity there when Euro- 
Peans first settled that State, seems to show conclusively that 1t 
aas spread considerably southward along the Atlantic coast dur- 
ing the last two hundred years, and that the gray fox has re- 
ceded before it. 
however, in the bone caves 
gree Din oss, mae dy aai ee aA a 
Notwithstanding the constant persecution to which this animal 
or less frequent occurrence 
been subjected, it is still of more 
throughout New England, and through its consummate cunning 
%8 even been able to extend its range over considerable areas 
Since the first settlement of the country- 
The early records show that both the fisher í 
nanti) and the marten (Mustela Americana) were common ~ 
habitants of not only the whole of New England, but also of the 
i States generally, as far southward as Virginia (except- 
page 49, foot-note. 
is also usually called the 
(Mustela Pen- 
1 
4 pimple and Sheldon’s History of Northfield, Mass., 
up, > the early records the fisher (Mustela Pennant) 
í black fox.” . 
