AMERICAN BLACK OR SILVER FOX. 
73 
who also wrote to us that “ the common and cross Poxes were abundant 
about the White Mountains, and that they were most easily shot whilst 
scenting and following game, when their whole attention appears to bo 
concentrated on that one object.” 
This Fox is occasionally seen in Nova Scotia, and a friend there informs 
us that some have been shot in his vicinity. 
GEOGRAPHICAL DISTRIBUTION. 
As this variety of the Red Fox chiefly occurs in the colder regions of 
our continent, we cannot set it down as a regular inhabitant of even the 
southern parts of the State of New York, nor any part of Pennsylvania 
or New Jersey. 
The specimens which have been obtained in the two former States Avere 
killed at long intervals, and Avere, moreover, not of so fine a pelage or so 
beautiful a colour as those from more northern latitudes. 
The skins sold to the American Fur Company are from the head waters 
of the Mississippi river, and the territories northwest of the Missouri, and 
are considered equal to the best. 
GENERAL REMARKS. 
The production of peculiar and permanent varieties in species of animals 
in a wild or natural state, is a subject of remarkable interest, although it 
cannot be explained on any data Avith which we are at present acquainted. 
It is singular that in several species of red Foxes, widely removed from 
each other in their geographical ranges, the same peculiarities occur. The 
red Fox of Europe ( Cams vulpes), a species differing from ours, produces no 
varieties in the southern and warmer parts of that continent, but is every- 
where of the same reddish colour, yet in high northern latitudes, especially 
in mountainous regions, it exhibits not only the black, but the cross Fox 
varieties. 
In the western portions of our continent the large red Fox of Lewis and 
Clark, which Ave described from a hunter’s skin in our first volume (p, 54), 
and to which wo have elsewhere given the name of Vulpes. Utah, runs 
into similar varieties. 
VOL. III. — 10 
