270 
THE VOYAGE OF THE VEGA. 
[chap. 
the foxes carried off their caps and gloves, and made their way 
under the covering. They nosed the noses of the sleepers to 
find out whether they were dead or living, and attempted to 
nibble at any who held their breath. As the female seadions 
and sea-bears often suffocate their young during sleep, the foxes 
every morning made an inspection of the place where these 
animals lie down in immense herds, and if they found a dead 
young one they immediately helped each other, like good 
scavengers, to carry away the carcase. When men were employed 
out of doors they had to drivS the foxes away with sticks, 
and they became, in consequence of the slyness and cunning 
with which they knew how to carry out their thefts and the 
skill which they showed in combining to gain an end which 
they could not compass as single animals, actually dangerous 
to the shipwrecked men, by whom they were therefore heartily 
hated, pursued, tormented, and killed. Since then thousands 
and thousands of foxes have been killed on Behring Island 
by the fur-hunters. Now they are so scarce that during our 
stay there we did not see one. Those that still survive, besides, 
as the Europeans settled on the island informed me, do not wear 
the precious dark blue dress formerly common but the white, 
which is of little value. On the neighbouring Copper Island, 
however, there are still dark blue foxes in pretty large numbers.^ 
1 As early as Schelechov’s wintering at 1783-84 the foxes on Behring 
Island were principally white. During Steller’s wintering, over a third of 
the foxes on the island had a bluish fur {Neue nord. Beytr.^ ii. p. 277). In 
the year 1747-48 a fur hunter, Cholodilov, caught on Behring Island 1,481 
blue foxes and 350 sea-otters, and the following year another hunter 
returned with over a thousand sea-otters and two thousand blue foxes, 
which probably were also caught on Behring and Copper Islands {N&ue 
Nachrichten von denen neuentdechten Insidn, Hamburg u. Leipzig, 1766, p. 
20). In the year 1751-53 Jugoy caught on the same island 790 sea-otters, 
6,844 black and 200 white foxes, and 2,212 sea-bears {loc. cit. p. 22). In 
1752-53 the crew of a vessel belonging to the Irkutsk merchant, Nikifor 
Trapeznikoff, caught on Behring Island 5 sea-otters, 1,222 foxes (colour 
not stated), and 2,500 sea-bears {loc. cit. p. 32). It thus appears as if the 
