FOX. 
189 
they went in waistcoats. In June they dropped 
their cubs, nine or ten at a brood, in holes and clefts 
of the rocks. They are so fond of their young, 
that, to scare us away from them, they barked and 
yelled like dogs ; by which they betrayed their 
covert : but no sooner did they perceive that their 
retreat was discovered, than (unless they were pre- 
vented) they dragged the young away in their 
mouths, and endeavoured to conceal them in some 
more secret place. On one of us killing the young, 
the dam would follow him with dreadful howlings, 
both day and night, for a hundred or more versts ; 
and would not even then cease till she had done 
him some material injury, or was herself killed by 
him. 
“ In heavy falls of snow these animals bury 
themselves in that substance, where they live as 
long as it continues of a sufficient depth. They 
swim across the rivers with great agility. Besides 
what the sea casts up, or what is destroyed by other 
beasts, they seize the water-fowl, by night, on the 
cliffs where it has settled to sleep ; but, on the con- 
trary, they are themselves frequently victims to the 
birds of prey. Though now found in such num- 
bers on this island, they were probably conveyed 
thither from the continent, on the drift-ice ; and 
being afterwards nourished by the great quantity of 
animal substances thrown ashore by the sea, they 
became thus enormously multiplied.” 
Arctic foxes live in the clefts of rocks, and in 
caverns ; they likewise burrow in the earth, and 
