520 
18,000 during the 1938-39 and 1939-40 
seasons. “These fur-takers are estimated 
to have averaged about 141,000 possums 
annually; most during the 1938-39 sea- 
Ittinois NATURAL History SURVEY BULLETIN 
Vol. 22, Art. ff 
‘The questions to which the wardens re- 
plied had been so worded that they may 
have been uncertain whether the informa- 
tion desired relative to foxes referred spe- 
Fig. 11.—An immature possum caught in Cook County, 1941. 
son, when the figure was about 244,000. 
The estimated annual income averaged 
about $39,000. Averages are for the sea- 
sons of this study ending with 1939-40. 
The above figures indicate about 1 pos- 
sum hunter or trapper to 3.5 square miles, 
or roughly 160 per county; about 2.5 pos- 
sums per square mile, or 1,400 per coun- 
ty; an income of about 70 cents per square 
mile, or roughly $390 per county. 
FOXES 
Distribution.—The catch of foxes in 
Illinois, fig. 12, estimated from fur-takers’ 
monthly report data, is decidedly greatest 
in the two southernmost tiers of counties. 
It is moderately large in the lower and 
upper counties bordering the Mississippi 
and along the Illinois and Embarrass 
rivers. 
Red foxes are found in all Illinois 
counties, while gray foxes are found in 
comparatively few, fig. 13. About 30 
years ago, Forbes (1912) reported that 
foxes were found in 40 of the 102 counties 
of the state. A recent examination of 
game wardens’ letters on which Forbes 
based his statements reveals that the ward- 
ens in more than half the counties of the 
state reported gray foxes, presumably the 
less widely distributed of the two species. 
cifically to their own counties or to the 
state as a whole. Most of them answered 
specifically for their respective counties. 
Some of the wardens of that day appar- 
ently were not aware that foxes occurred 
in the counties under their charge, and 
others perhaps did not know a gray fox 
from a red fox. ‘Therefore, the accom- 
panying map, fig. 13, based in part on the 
reports from these wardens, may not give 
_a highly accurate picture of the occurrence 
of gray foxes in Illinois in 1912. 
Gray foxes were reported by wardens 
chiefly in the northern three tiers of coun- 
ties, along the Illinois River, and along 
the Mississippi and Ohio rivers in the 
southern part of the state. Topographic 
features of these regions are favorable to 
gray foxes, and present records show that 
these animals occur there today; despite 
local inaccuracies, the general distribution 
pattern as derived by Forbes from the 
wardens’ reports was probably approxi- 
mately correct for 1912. 
When timber was more widely distrib- 
uted in Illinois than at present, the distri- 
bution of gray foxes in the state was possi- 
bly greater. hat condition may account 
for the reported occurrence of gray foxes” 
in central Illinois in 1912. 
Dates more recent than 1912 on the 
map, fig. 13, refer to collecting or fur- 
