84 NORTHERN ZOOLOGY. 
In most specimens, the fur has a bluish-gray colour at its roots on the back, the shoulders, 
and outside of the thighs, but particularly on the neck and tail. The proportion of the 
length of the fur so coloured, varies with the individual and the season of the year. In 
some it is confined to so small a space at the roots as to be scarcely perceptible, and in others 
it is so great as to tarnish the whiteness of its surface. At almost all times the short hair 
clothing the posterior surface and margins of the ears is of a dark brownish-gray colour for 
half its length, so as to give them a bluish or blackish tinge, whenever it is ruffled. No 
naked callous places exist on the soles of this fox in the winter time. The claws are long, 
compressed, slightly arched, and have a light horn colour, 
Summer dress.—In the months of April or May, when the snow begins to disappear, 
the long white fur falls off, and is replaced by shorter hair, which is more or Jess coloured. 
A specimen, which was killed at York Factory on Hudson’s Bay, in August, is described 
by Mr. Sabine as follows. ‘* The head and chin are brown, having some fine white hairs 
scattered through the far; the ears, externally, are coloured like the head; within they 
are white: a similar brown colour extends along the back to the tail, and from the back 
is continued down the outside of all the legs, but on the latter a few white hairs are inter- 
mixed; the whole under parts, and the insides of the legs are dingy white; the tail is 
brownish above, becoming whiter at the end, and is entirely white beneath.”—On the 
approach of winter the fur lengthens, the white hairs increase in number, all the hairs 
become white at the tips, but retain more or less of the bluish or brownish-gray colour at 
the roots, until the fur is in prime winter order, when it is of its full length, and almost 
every where of a pure white colour from the roots to the tips. —The fur on the soles of 
the feet becomes thinner and shorter in the summer time, and several naked callous places 
then appear, but they are not so large as those which exist on the soles of the other North 
American Foxes at the same season of the year. 
It is necessary to observe that the majority only of the Arctic Foxes acquire the pure 
white dress even in winter; many have a little duskiness on the nose, and others, probably 
young individuals, remain more or less coloured on the body all the year. On the other 
hand, a pure white Arctic Fox is occasionally met with in the middle of summer, and 
forms the variety named kakkortak by the Greenlanders. Hearne states that the Arctic 
Foxes, ‘“‘when young, are almost all over of a sooty black; but as the fall advances, the 
belly, sides, and tail turn to a light ash-colour; the back, legs, some part of the face, and 
the tip of the tail, change to a lead colour, and when the winter sets in, they become 
perfectly white. There are few of them which have not a few dark hairs at the tip of the 
tail, all the winter*.” 
* Although I am not aware that a comparison between recent specimens of the Arctic Foxes of the New and Old 
Worlds has been made so as to prove their identity of form, yet their perfect similarity of habits, and in the series of 
variations in their fur, may lead us to conclude that the species is the same on both continents. The Siberian hunters 
informed Gmelin ‘‘ that they often found gray and white individuals in the same litter, and that the first have at birth 
avery deep gray colour, the latter a yellowish tint, the hairs being in both very short. Towards the end of the summer, 
when the hair begins to increase in length, foxes are often met with, having a brown streak along the back, crossed 
by a similar one at the shoulders. These individuals, sometimes termed cross fowes, become at length entirely white.’ 
All the different species of fox seem liable to produce a crucigerous variety. 
