FOREST AND STREAM 
[July 28, 1906. 
134 
and seem to enjoy the sunshine. The pups will 
come out as soon as old enough, and play about 
the entrance to the burrow, much like dogs. 
As to diseases, they have none as yet. Islands 
that have been stocked the longest are free 
from any sign of disease. Neither has disease 
appeared on the islands of St. George, St. Paul, 
or Attu. They are troubled some with intestinal 
parasites, but proper feeding will keep them 
pretty free from the worms, and a little medi¬ 
cine mixed with the food helps, too. 
They have few enemies on the islands. About 
the only one is the eagle. On some islands 
these are quite troublesome. The keepers are 
armed and receive a reward or bounty of half 
a dollar for every eagle they kill, turning the 
head in for proof. The eagles have a fondness 
for young foxes. I have never learned of their 
taking a grown fox. 
I believe that the eagle is the most serious 
enemy that the blue fox rancher has to contend 
with, but the ravens destroy some. While an 
eagle will only drop down on the fox, and very 
likely go away if he misses, the ravens will sit 
around on the rocks and bushes and watch for 
a chance to pick up a young fox. I have seen 
a Kadiak raven carry off a young duck weigh¬ 
ing from one-half to three-quarters of a pound. 
A neighbor of mine tells me that the natives on 
his island have seen gulls picking at young 
foxes, and the foxes fighting them off with 
their paws. The natives said that the gulls were 
trying to pick out the foxes’ eyes so that they 
could kill them. 
Some islands have to be watched for poachers 
during the time the fur is prime and valuable, 
but only those that are rather close to settle¬ 
ments. Most of the islands are so exposed that 
during the season the fur is prime it is so 
stormy that no one would attempt to land or 
venture near them. During the summer the 
foxes look rather poorly, especially while shed¬ 
ding their winter coat. Then they are very 
ragged and untidy looking. When killing for 
market, the foxes are trapped in feed houses and 
pens and taken out in hand-traps or boxes, and 
on the best conducted islands are taken to a 
room or small house to be killed. Care is taken 
not to kill around the feeding places, or where 
other foxes could see. Care is taken also to kill 
off all the inferior and off-colored ones. The 
finest foxes are kept for breeding purposes, and 
great care is now taken to keep the sexes about 
even. Some breeders go so far as to say that if 
one of a pair of blue foxes is killed or taken 
away from its mate, they will never mate again. 
This is going almost too far. Still there seems 
to be some foundation for the supposition, for 
in the National Zoological Park and some other 
places where experiments have been tried, only 
now and then will a female have young. _ Four 
females and one male have been put in en¬ 
closures, and never but one female has had 
young so far, and often where one pair were 
together they would not breed. This may be 
because they were in captivity. On the islands 
they run at large. There have been cases re¬ 
ported to me where “widows” have had a fine 
litter of pups and reared them, apparently without 
the help of a male. 
In killing and the care of the pelts all the 
natives of Alaska are experts. The skins are 
carefully handled and looked after until shipped. 
The pelts collected by the larger companies and 
well stocked islands are shipped direct to Lon¬ 
don, where they are graded and sold at 
auction during the quarterly fur sales. 
In the 1900 March sales in London, the blue 
fox brought very high prices, and until the war 
between the Japs and Russians began the price 
was increasing every year. The spring of 1903 
they reached the highest prices for a long time; 
some No. 1 pelts bringing $70 each. At the 
March sales of 1904, after the war started, there 
was a drop in the price of fine fur— 
blue fox, silver fox and sea otter—of 40 
per cent. Even with this depreciation in 
prices they averaged in one lot almost $16 after 
all expenses were paid. At the 1905 March sales 
the price of blue fox increased 70 per cent, over 
the March 1904 sales, and at the 1906 March sales 
there was another advance of 20 per cent. Blue 
fox skins from Cape Elizabeth Island, the one I 
COOK AND FOOD HOUSES, CAPE ELIZABETH ISLAND. 
am most familiar with, sold remarkably well; one 
lot of 75 skins averaged a trifle over $38, 
and at the June sales (when very few fine furs 
are usually sold) a lot of 45 were sold at an 
average of $41 each. 
Few are sold in this country, and those only 
from the understocked islands, where the natives 
sell a few skins to the local dealers for pro¬ 
visions and other supplies. Then the local 
traders purchase all the pelts from small islands. 
In the end, however, these pelts usually reach 
London, England. The proper season for kill¬ 
ing is December 15 to February 15, according 
to conditions of climate. They should not be 
killed till the fur is prime. 
To properly stock an island with blue foxes 
and equip it with everything necessary, costs 
about $15,000. Such an island can be made to 
pay at the end of the second season—or two 
years and a half—because the young foxes eight 
and nine months old are often as valuable 
for fur as older ones. That they breed at one 
year old is well known. Islands can only be 
stocked safely in August and September, and 
should be stocked only with young foxes in even 
pairs. 
While on an island one spring—Cape Eliza¬ 
beth Island—I noticed many interesting things 
about the foxes. One is about their defense of 
their burrows and their effort to keep intruders 
NATIVE CANOES. 
away. Having occasion to climb to the top of a 
mountain, I started up a very steep grassy hill 
side along a fox trail. I had seen a fox come 
down and saw him stop under a spruce tree to 
watch me. When I had gotten about two 
hundred yards from him and he was sure of 
where .1 was going, he commenced to bark and 
whine and yelp as though in distress, and soon 
started toward me. I kept on climbing the steep 
hill, using a long cane or staff to assist me. 
Soon the fox overtook me, got in front and 
tried to drive me back, coming so close I had 
to poke the stick at him to keep him away. He 
would bark and show his teeth, then whine and 
appear to beg me not to go further. Then he 
tried two or three times to nip my heels, but 
the mountain side was so steep he could not 
dodge in quick enough. He stayed in front of me 
until I reached some scrubby spruces, where he 
disappeared, but not until I had seen several 
other foxes dodging among the trees. This was 
not the only fox who tried to head me off on 
my trip around the island. There is no danger 
from them, but it shows they have much more 
courage than other kinds of foxes. 
The keeper’s little boy (three years old) would 
play with the foxes that came about the house, 
but when too many gathered around he would 
get frightened and run into the house. If he 
threatened them with a stick, or halloed at 
them they would come very close and bark at 
him. I thought there was some danger to him, 
but the father said the foxes were only playing. 
In the autumn the pups, as soon as they learn 
to shift for themselves, follow the keeper about 
the island, and they are the ones seen mostly 
during the day, the older ones keeping out of 
sight and not coming to the feed houses until 
dusk. Toward spring they all keep out of sight. 
Once years ago, when some of the volcanoes of 
Alaska were a bit active, covering the island with 
dust, there was now and then an earthquake 
shock. The keeper said that he could hear it 
coming, and that all the foxes started up the 
valley trying to run away from the sound. 
When the disturbance had passed under them, 
they turned and ran back down the valley. 
They do not do much barking during the day, 
but at dusk and all night they are very noisy. 
Their bark is short, sharp and quickly re¬ 
peated. getting a little longer drawn toward the 
end, the last drawn out like a red fox’s bark. 
They are bright, active little animals, and, of 
course, cunning as a fox, and when in prime coat 
very pretty. They can be seen, but not to as good 
advantage as in a wild state, in the National 
Zoological Park, Washington, D. C. There are 
twelve grown ones. The New York Zoological 
Society got twelve. Two of these went to 
the Cincinnati Zoological Company. There are 
a few at Randolph Center, Vt., and some on an 
island on the Maine coast. 
The climate of the Alaskan coast islands is 
very stormy, but not very cold, compared with 
the interior. The climate is just right for most 
of the furs. The constant culling and careful 
selection of breeding animals is keeping the stock 
on the blue fox islands up to a high standard. 
What is more to the point, blue fox raising has 
ceased to be an experiment. 
Thomas Elwood Hofer. 
Yellowstone National Park, May 25. 
Reeve’s Pheasants in Central Park. 
One of the most beautiful, and until very re¬ 
cently one of the rarest, of pheasants known in 
domestication or in preserves is the splendid 
Reeve’s pheasant concerning which we have had 
several notes in Forest and Stream within the 
past few months. 
It is interesting to learn that in the Zoological 
collections of New York city, which are under 
the charge of Director John W. Smith, and lo¬ 
cated at the Arsenal in Central Park, five Reeve’s 
pheasants were hatched not long ago by a bantam 
hen, and have now attained considerable size 
and are doing well. An illustration of this 
species was printed in our issue of March 17, 
1906, p. 421, and a spirited drawing of the bird 
in flight and making a sharp turn in our issue of 
March 31, p. 505. 
