44 
. OREST AND STREAM. 
[July is, 1905. 
Dark Foxes. 
Editor Forest and Stream: 
The Smithsonian Institution has lately issued a 
pamphlet (No. 1405) by Chief Factor Hudson Bay Com- 
pany, R. MacFarlane, on mammals collected and observed 
■ in the northern Mackenzie River district. In this, speak- 
ing_ of red, cross, silver and black foxes, he says : “The 
natives consider the foregoing as belonging to one and 
the same species (the common red fox), an opinion gen- 
erally, but not universally accepted by naturalists and col- 
lectors; and while it is just probable that the different 
varieties have occasionally been found among the litter of 
a red fox mother, yet I have been for a long time of the 
opinion that there must have been originally two distinct 
and well-defined species of the North American red fox, 
the pure red and the pure black {Vulpes fulva and V. 
nigra) and, as a matter of fact, there still exist many of 
the former and some of the latter throughout the entire 
region under review. I also firmly believe that sexual 
intercourse between a male and female red. fox invariably 
results in the production of only red foxes. I am equally 
satisfied that similar results always follow cohabitation 
between a male and a female black fox. In the course of 
many years’ trading of fox skins, I have observed perhaps 
every possible degree of variation between the practically 
perfect typical red fox and the same description of the 
black form. These varieties between the two are easily 
accounted for, as a consequence of the natural commerce 
which exists between the sexes during the annual sea- 
sons of copulation.” 
As the Mackenzie River district, of which Mr. Mac- 
Farlane wrote, contains a larger proportion of dark foxes 
than any other territory known (Chief Trader Bernard 
R. Ross setting the proportions at six-fifteenths red, 
seven-fifteenths cross and two-fifteenths silver and black) 
it may seem presumptuous for one who probably has not 
handled one dark fox where he has handled hundreds to 
** question his statements; still, having probably handled as 
many red foxes as he, and having observed them closely 
for over sixty years in a territory where the dark bear a 
very small proportion to the red, I am obliged to believe' 
that the natives to whom he refers are correct, and that 
he himself is mistaken. 
I believe, and think I can prove, that a black fox is 
due to melanism and that the various crosses are due in 
some cases, as he states to the crossing of these mela- 
nistic individuals with the pure red, but in others are 
the result of partial melanism. 
Mr. MacFarlane speaks of white wolves being more 
plentiful in some sections, gray wolves in others, and 
black wolves in others, but he does not intimate that they 
are of different species. He also speaks of black beaver 
and black muskrats being taken, but he does not give his 
views as to the origin of them. 
Ail naturalists and most other people know that there 
are albinos of many varieties of both animals and birds. 
■ In some cases these reproduce perfect albinos, and in 
others, by crossing, partial albinos. I have known a pure 
white doe to have two pure white fawns ; I have seen 
three white mink taken in different years -from, the same 
place, which would be strong evidence of reproduction. 
Now albinism is just the opposite of melanism. Why is 
it not just as reasonable to believe that two red foxes 
may have a black cub as that two black crows may have 
white young? I have in my collection nearly thirty en- 
tire or partial albinos of birds; I have a white crow taken 
near Portland, Oregon, which was one of three pure 
white young crows, the parents being black; l.have a 
swallow, white as snow, whose parents I know were of 
the normal color; I have myself seen three, coal-black 
northern hares, also a coal-black red squirrel, and a good 
many black beaver and muskrats, also a number of coal- 
black raccoons. In fact, black muskrats and raccoons 
are often quoted separately on price lists of furs, though 
not one ever thinks of either being a separate species. 
Why cases of albinism should be found oftener in some 
kinds of birds than in others, is as yet unexplained, but 
it is a well known fact. The same is true in melanism. 
There arc so many cases of entire or partial melanism 
among rough-legged hawks that for a long time the black 
form was considered by ornithologists as _ a separate 
species under the name of Archibuteo sancti johannis to 
.separate it from Archibuteo lagopus. I believe the same 
is true of mammals. In handling deer skins by the thou- 
sand I have never seen a black one nor one which_ ap- 
proached that color, but I have seen white, or partially 
white deer by the score. On the other hand, m handling 
hundreds of thousands of muskrat, I have seen many 
black and but one pure white one and one other with a 
small portion of white. Mr. L. M. Turner, in his report 
upon animals in Alaska, makes particular mention that 
where there is the largest proportion of black wolves 
there is also the largest proportion of dark foxes. He 
gives the proportion of silver and black foxes in Alaska 
as one in five hundred, and of cross as one in Seventy-five 
to one hundred. Here in Maine, where we do not get 
one dark fox in a thousand, we have a much better 
chance to judge correctly as to melanism than can be had 
farther north, where dark foxes are more abundant. I 
know surely that there may be both silver and cross foxes 
in the same litter, as when I was a boy my father had 
and raised two cross and a silver taken from the same 
^^While I believe that a pair of black foxes may have 
young of the same color and that crosses may do the 
same still I firmly believe that both originate from the 
common red just as white crows do from black ones, and 
that often the abnormal strain of blood is confined to 
one individual. While in some cases there is but one dark 
ifox in a litter’ in some cases there are more. Something 
over fifty years ago my father bought six foxes taken on 
Swan’s Island (then called Burnt Coat Island). Of these 
one was a silver and five were black. Some two or three 
of the black were very fine skins, the others of a more 
slaty color. Now my father had bought almost the entire 
catch of the island for years before and did the same for 
years after; as far as I knew he never got another of 
either black, silver or cross from that island or from any 
other island near it. These foxes were all shot in winter 
and probably of one litter. I distinctly remember the 
skins, as we kept them over summer and the care of keep- 
ing them free from moths devolved upon me. I will add 
that my father did not buy another dark fox that year 
from any part of the’ State. 
Some sixty-five years ago my father obtained a permit 
from Colonel Black, of Ellsworth, Me., to go to the outer 
Duck Island to kill foxes. Some years before Colonel 
Black had placed a pair of black foxes upon this island. 
There had been no foxes upon the island and those were 
under the protection of the light keeper. As far as known 
none of these or their offspring had been killed. There 
was snow on the ground, so that every track could be 
seen, my father and his companion had a good fox hound, 
and the island is quite small. They were on the island 
several days and shot three very large cross foxes, but 
did not see nor hear of atiy black or red. The reasonable 
supposition is that the original pair was dead and that 
these crosses were bred from them. 
In Maine the larger part of all the dark foxes I ever 
knew taken were taken quite near the seacoast. I have 
known of more being taken on Mt. Desert Island than 
upon any space ten times its size inland. 
My father used tO' buy a great many more cross than 
silver or black, while my experience has been exactly the 
reverse. I have to-day looked over my books and found 
in one year over 3,300 red foxes shipped and only one 
silver and no cross. My experience has been -that I would 
occasionally get a dark fox from some place far inland, 
where I had bought the larger part of the catch for years, 
and never get another or a cross again taken anywhere 
near there. 'What is noticeable is that a large proportion 
of all the dark foxes I have seen were foxes of the year. 
In the Far North, where the proportion of dark foxes is 
quite large, I have no doubt that the strain of blood is 
kept up by mating with those of like color, but here, 
where they are very rare, it is very seldom that two are 
taken near each other for years, and then they seem to 
be from the same litter. 
We occasionally have here what we call “mongrels,” 
foxes of a color between a cross and a red; also what 
are known as “Sampson foxes.” These look like a red 
fox which has been singed all over. I have seen a silver 
Sampson and a Sampson cross. We know positively 
that both mongrels and Sampsons are from red foxes. 
Why is it not more reasonable to suppose that the dif- 
ferent shades of dark foxes are produced in the same 
way than to suppose that they have wandered down here 
hundreds of miles from the north? 
I once bought a pure white fox taken near here and 
one season bought three which were about one-third 
white. Two of them I know v^^ere from the same litter. 
I have bought several foxes of a chocolate color, and once 
saw one which had all the ends of the hair, except on tip 
of tail, coal-black, while the inside fur was red. If all 
these various colors are born of red foxes, why may not 
what black and cross we have, been produced in the same 
way? 
In the Far North we have the polar white fox; next 
the blue fox (I have never heard of their mixing, al- 
though in some cases they are fgund oh the same ground). 
Next we have a region where the- dark foxes predominate, 
but there are red among them; as orie goes south the 
proportion of red increases, till south of Maine the black 
is extremely rare and the southern gray begins, a separate 
species which does not mix with the red. The kitt fox 
of the West is a separate variety and is not known to mix 
with other species. The fact that neither kitt, gray, white, 
nor blue intermix is strong presumptive proof that foxes’ 
like wolves, are in the north inclined to melanism in a 
greater degree than farther south, and that finally the 
wolves all merge into the gray and the foxes into the red. 
It is a certain thing that in Maine our dark foxes aye 
born here and do not come from any black blood to the 
north. 
Skunks, which by fur buyers are graded into black, 
half-stripe, narrow-stripe and white or wide stripe, are 
a very close parellel to foxes, which are classed as black, 
silver, cross and red. Often when from eight to ten 
skunks are taken from the same den, all these different 
colors can be found among them. While no two un- 
selected lots from any section would be likely (o grade 
alike, still the proportion of colors of a lot taken in Maine 
east of the Penobscot would be not far from (in a lot of 
twenty), one black, three half-stripe, seven narrow and 
nine wide stripe. A lot from between the Penobscot and 
the Kennebec, which lies only fifty miles west, would 
show a larger proportion of dark, and this increases as 
they are taken farther west. I have never handled any 
skunk taken west of Maine, but a collector of furs in 
northern New York used to tell me that his collections 
averaged fully half black or half-stripe. Now it is in- 
disputable that the same set of parents produce all four 
grades, and also that the proportion of colors varies with 
the section. Not only this, but skunk sometimes produce 
nondescripts just as foxes do, I once bought a prime, 
fully-furred skunk which had the stripes brown instead 
of white, and I have had several whose stripes were 
tinged with pinkish magenta. Manly Hardy. 
All communications f-or Forest and Stream must be 
directed to Forest and Stream Pub. Co., New York, to 
receive attention. We have no other oMce. 
Wapiti and Red Deer Cross. 
From the London Field. 
Such facilities have been afforded of late years for the 
transport of large game animals from one continent to 
another, and the method of capture and treatment en 
route is now so well understood, that the presence of a 
herd of wapiti {Cervus canadensis) in an English deer 
park or Scottish deer forest no longer gives rise to much 
astonishment. Many experiments of the kind have been 
made with varying success. In Germany, so long ago as 
1888, a wealthy manufacturer of Berlin, owning an im- 
portant shooting near Luckenwald, imported a small herd 
of these animals (known as elk in America and Canada, 
where the true elk is called moose) and turned them out 
in his forest. Here the following year, seven of them 
were successfully stalked and shot, one of them having a 
head of fourteen points. In Thuringia a year or two 
later several were turned out by Duke Ernest of Saxe-- 
Coburg. The object of such importation was a desire to 
improve the size and weight of the red deer, with which 
it was hoped the wapiti would interbreed, and it is known 
that such interbreeding did actually take place. 
In 1893 there were at least two importations of wapiti 
to England; there may have been others which were not: 
reported. Mr. C. J. Leyland, of Haggerstone Castle, Beal, 
Northumberland, received a herd of eleven, and Sir Peter 
Walker, of Osmaston Manor, near Derby, introduced a 
herd of twenty (fourteen hinds and six stags), providing 
them with an extensive range surrounded by a high fence. 
It is of this last-named herd that we are now enabled to 
give some particulars. On their arrival in this country 
in 1893 the animals varied in age from one to three years. 
They were captured in or near the Snake River Valley, 
Lake Idaho, by Mr. W. H. Root, of Laramie, Wyo., in 
the following manner : 
In the fall of the year the deer “bunch up”- or collect 
together to pass the winter, and are pursued by the hunt- 
ers on snowshoes in the spring, when, the snow being soft 
and wet, the animals sink deep at every footstep, and may 
then be overtaken. Those first captured are roped on the - 
forelegs, and then others are pursued, caught, and hob- 
^ bled in the same way, so that sometimes a distance of a 
mile or two may separate the first caught from the last. 
At length, when the requisite number has been obtained 
the animals are conveyed on sledges to the ranch. Those 
consigned to Sir Peter Walker had to be transported no 
miles to the railway by which they were taken to New ' 
York, whence they were transported by the Whi'e Star.- 
Line to Liverpool, and thence to Ashbourne, Derbyshire. = 
This was in October, 1893. By Eeb. i, 1895, three of 
them had died, it was said, from a, disease akin to liver- 
fluke in sheep. The remainder of the herd . were then < 
moved from the front of the manor to their origilial pas- 
turage near Copse Hill, and, the ground there being' more 
elevated, their condition improved. ' . 
At the present time, however, only four of the original 
herd are left, and the last one that died having been sub- 
mitted to the inspection of Capt. T. Aulton, veterinary 
surgeon, of Derby, he found, on a post-niortem examina- 
tion, that death was due to a tapeworm (To?nfa marginata) 
which infested the intestines in large numbers. 
Although so few of the original herd now survive at 
Osmaston, the result of interbreeding with the red deer 
has been satisfactory, and at the present time, as the 
owner informs us, there are fift'>'-six hybrid deer surviv- 
ing. One of these hybrids which was killed last year 
weighed 29st. 9lb., and carried good antlers, which re-’ 
sembled those of a red deer rather than a wapiti. No 
doubt good feeding had much to do with the weight. The' 
food usually supplied at Osmaston is oats and peas, with 
beans occasionally for a change, and sometimes locust' 
beans. In the spring they are given a moderate supply of 
dried acorns, which, being somewhat astringent, are 
effectual to prevent scouring. ' Throughout the winter, 
months they get hay. It may be added, that for the pur- 
pose of carrying out the experiment of crossing, the red 
deer selected were of Irish descent, and were imported 
from Ireland in September, 1896. 
Bird Rooketies in the Gt»If of Mexico. 
Mr. P'rank M. Miller, President of the Louisiana 
Audubon Society, has recently returned from a tour of 
inspection of the bird breeding islands in the Gulf of 
Mexieo. These islands, which from time immemorial 
have been great resorts for seafowl, have within the 
past few years become also resorts for eggers, so that 
the colonies have been constantly broken up and the birds 
driven away. Louisiana now has a good bird protective 
law and every effort is being made to enforce it. 
During Mr. Miller’s excursion, he found a small colony 
of laughing gulls on Sundown Island, but Martin Island 
Key. long famous as a breeding island and somewhat 
further from Pass Christian was found to be without 
birds, owing, as is stated, to the depredations of the crew 
of the schooner Alpha, of Ocean Springs. Miss. On the 
other hand, several islands in Morgan Harbor were found 
to have plenty of birds on them, although here also a 
schooner from Mississippi was seen and suspected of 
depredations. On one or two other islands birds were 
found breeding in great numbers— gulls, terns, man-of- 
war birds and pelicans — but on the other hand, many 
rookeries have been robbed by Mississippi vessels, it is 
alleged, and the birds driven away. 
It is clear that much work still remains to be done in 
the way of watching the islands of the Gulf coast, but the 
Louisiana Audubon Society is heartily in earnest and will- 
do its best. Much work is needed in the way of educat- 
ing the people of adjacent States to a point where they 
will do their best toward protecting the islands of the 
Gulf. 
