236 The Mammals of Colorado 
and an indefinite patch or band of same ; front of fore legs gray, 
back fulvous; hind legs fulvous; tail above gray with prominent 
black stripe, below fulvous. 
Cranial characters, see description of genus. 
Distribution. — Scott's Gray Fox is found in Arizona, New Mexico, 
Texas, Oklahoma, Colorado, and Chihuahua, Mexico. An inhabi- 
tant of the Transition and Sonoran Zones, in Colorado it is usually 
found in the cedar and pihon zone, and probably does not go much 
if at all above 8,000 feet. While quite common in many parts of the 
State, we have but few county records. It has been taken in El 
Paso, Las Animas, Chaffee, Montezuma, and Montrose counties, 
and was reported as being at Lily, Routt County. 
Habits. — The habits of the Gray Fox are similar in many 
respects to those of the Red; its food is much the same, 
consisting of rabbits, wood - rats, mice and such small animals, 
as well as any birds it may be able to catch. It has a fondness 
for the rocky ledges along the gulches in canons, where it 
lives in holes and caves. Not very much is known of its 
breeding habits. A female taken April 8th, at Coventry, 
Montrose County, contained four small embryos which 
probably would not have been born for a month or more. 
In many places in Colorado, at least, it is called the "Swift," 
a name which properly belongs to Vulpes velox. 
Genus VULPES (Lat., a fox) 
Vulpes Brisson, Rcgn. Anim., ii. ed., p. 173 (1762). Type 
Vulpes alopcx Linnaeus. 
Revision, Merriam, Proc. Wash. Acad. Set., ii., 661-676 (1900). 
Nose and jaws tapering and elongated, even more so than in 
Canis; body rather short; legs rather short; tail long, bushy; more 
than J length of body; fur soft, hair long; nasals do not extend back 
to maxillaries; postorbital process concave above; temporal crests 
nearly in contact; skull with no frontal sinus; pupil elliptical; 
teeth are similar to those of Canis but incisors are proportionally 
smaller and the upper ones are not lobed ; dentition identical with 
Canis — i.e., i. f ; c. \\ pm. |; m. f X 2 = 42. 
Representatives of this genus are found in Europe, Asia, 
Africa, and North America, and it has been divided into 
