96 NORTHERN ZOOLOGY. 
[27.] 3. Canis (vutpes) Virarnranus. (Gmelin.) The Gray Fox. 
Gray Fox. CatEssy, Carolina, vol. ii. p.78. t.78. KAum, Travels, (Pinkerton’s Coll.) vol. xiii. p. 467. 
PENNANT, Arctic Zool., vol. i. p. 48. 
Canis virginianus. GMELIN, Syst. vol. i. p. 74. SaBINE, Franklin’s Journey, p. 654. Haran, 
Fauna, p. 89. 
Virginian fox. Suaw, Zool., vol. i. p. 325. 
Canis cinereo-argenteus. Say, Long’s Exped., vol. ii. p. 340. 
_The Gray Fox (Canis cinereo.argentatus). Gopman’s Nat. Hist., vol. i. p. 280. 
This animal, which is said to be the most common species of fox in the southern 
parts of the United States, did not come under our notice on the late Expeditions, 
but it is here introduced to mark its most northern limit. Its skins are sometimes 
included amongst the Hudson Bay Company’s importations from their most 
southern Canadian posts. Kalm says that the Gray Foxes are very common in 
Pennsylvania, and in the southern provinces ; but scarce-in the northern ones, on 
which account the French call them Virginian foxes. He also says that they 
are smaller, less destructive, less active, and have a less rank smell than the 
European foxes. The Gray Fox has been confounded by some writers with the 
Cross Fox, which it much resembles, though it is smaller in size ; by others with 
the Kit Fox, which has also gray colours. Dr. Godman informs us that the 
chase of this animal affords more pleasure to the American sportsmen than that of 
the Red Fox *, ‘because it does not immediately forsake its haunts and run for 
miles in one direction, but after various doublings, is generally killed near the 
place where it first started!” Catesby, on the contrary, says that ‘‘ they give no 
diversion to the sportsmen, for after a mile’s chase they run up atree.”” The same 
author informs us that they breed in hollow trees. Langsdorff relates that in 
California he saw a great number of foxes following the cows, and living upon the 
most friendly terms with the young calves. 
* He alludes here, not to the Canis fulvus, but to the C, vulpes vulgaris of this work. 
