good load for the others. Their life is a hard one, far worse than that of a tinker's jackass, a blow or a kick is the usual caress bestowed upon them by their master. Their food is mostly the excrement and offal of the camp, hare-skins and paws, and any other trash too wretched for the far from nice stomach of a Chippewayan Indian. I have seldom or ever seen a fat dog among the natives. They make very good hounds to follow deer. or moose on the crust of the snow in spring; for though they have not sufficient strength to bring down these animals themselves, they retard their progress sufficiently to allow the approach of the hunter. I have seen some tolerable retrievers among them also.

I will now conclude this article by offering a just tribute to the affectionate disposition, and kindly habits of this poor and illused "friend of man." Scanty fare, harsh treatment and want, seem to make little difference in his love, and these miserable starvelings shew as much if not more affection for their hardhearted and tyrannical master, than do the pampered and petted favourites of European old maidenhood.

Sub-Family.-VULPINÆ.

Gen. ch. Pupil of the eye elliptical; head slender; upper incisors scarcely lobed; post-orbital process of the frontal bone bent but little downwards, the anterior edge turned up; a longitudinal shallow pit or indentation at its base.

VULPES FULVUS.-Common American Fox. (Desm).
Var. A. Fulvus, Red Fox.

Sp. ch. Hair long, silky and soft. Tail very full, composed of an under fur with long hairs distributed uniformly along it. Distance in red variety between hairs, 6 inches. Tail with white tip, feet and ears black.

Var. Fulvus. Reddish-yellow; back behind grizzled with greyish. Throat and narrow line on the belly white. Ears behind and tips of caudal hairs (except terminal brush) black.

Var. Decussatus. Muzzle and under parts with legs black, Tail blacker than in the other variety. A dark band between the shoulder, crossed by another over the shoulder.

Var. Argentatus. Entirely black except on the posterior part

of the back, where the hairs are annulated with grey, sionally wanting. Tail tipped with white. Baird.

this occa

In treating on the different varieties of foxes I have spoken of, it is extremely difficult to mark the line where one ends and the other commences. During my residence in these regions I have seen every shade of colour among them, from a bright flame tint to a perfectly black pelt, always excepting the tip of the tail, which in all cases is white. Even the judgment of an experienced fur trader is sometimes at fault to decide, in bartering, to which of the three varieties a skin should belong, as they bear different prices. Still, notwithstanding this, I consider these colours to have been produced by intermixture of breed. The different varieties, being in my opin ion, quite as distinct as those of the human race. And I do not think that any of the progeny of two pairs of red foxes would be either black or cross. In cohabiting the male foxes accompany the females in bands of from 3 to 10, much in the manner of domestic dogs. At Durwegan on Peace River, I have repeatedly observed this. The males fight violently for the possession of the females, many are maimed and some killed. A number of males thus in all likelihood cohabit with the same female, which gives rise to the varieties of colour in a litter. Instances are reported as having occurred in which all the varieties were taken in one den, but of this I am rather doubtful. It is very difficult to tell the future colour of cub foxes, the red appear to be cross, and the cross to be silver, which may have caused an error, though I write under correction. I have seen many Indians even mistaken in this. They have brought me live cub foxes for silver, which on growing up proved to be cross. My own theory is that the silver fox is the offspring of two silver parents, the cross, of a silver and red, the red, of two reds, and the different shades being caused by fresh inter-breeds. Thus two negroes will have neither white nor mulatto children, nor will two whites have black or mulatto offspring. I do not know whether I have explained my ideas on the subject clearly or not. They are the result of my experience on a subject to which I have given no small attention. I have often robbed fox dens, and have also bred the animals, and the summing up of this part of my subject may be thus made-like colours reproduce like, black and red being origins, the cross is the fruit of intermixture between these shades. I kept a pair of cross foxes in confinement at Slave Lake, their offspring were all cross. I had only one litter when the bitch died.

Foxes are very shy animals and difficult to tame, indeed when old they appear to pine away in confinement, when young they are playful,but at all times rather snappish. They are far from sociable and generally burrow alone, although it is not uncommon for the members of one family to live together.

The fox-burrow or den is often many yards in length, with various ramifications and side galleries to it, in the centre of which an excavation rather wider than the passages, serves for the sleeping apartment. To this there are always two entrances and often more. The den is kept very clean, and in some dozen which I have opened, I found neither bones of animals nor offal of any kind. To dig out a fox a flat piece of iron, called an earth-chisel, is tied to a stout wooden handle, the trapper inserts a long slender pole of willow, or other flexible wood into the entrance, having stopped up any other that exists, to find the direction in which the passage runs. He then digs another hole and inserts his pole, finding with its point whether any other passage exists, and if so, marking the direction. In this manner he proceeds till he digs to where the fox is, who is generally killed in one of the side galleries, or close to one of the closed entrances. This method of killing a fox entails a large amount of labour, as it often takes a whole day to unearth the animal.

Of all the natural gifts of the fox, the most remarkable is his exquisite sense of smell. When the fox finds a piece of meat or fish he almost invariably hides it, and returns to eat it at some future period. I have remarked this trait even in cubs, which I have reared in confinement, and which used, previous to eating, to dig holes in the snow to bury their food, pushing the snow with their noses to cover it. During the commencement of summer he will lay up a store of the eggs of wild-fowl, for his winter's consumption, these he deposits in holes dug in the sand bars of the river, or in beds of moss, and at the expiration of several months, will, when pressed by want, visit his caches. Even when there are several feet of snow on his deposit, he will readily distinguish the place by scenting his urine, with which a fox invariably sprinkles in a liberal manner, all his secret hoards.

This animal is by no means choice in his food; mice, birds, hares, fish, carrion, all come alike to him, and he will even make a meal of a fellow fox if he find one dead in a trap. In summer a great number of young water-fowl are killed by him, and when musk-rats are, by the freezing up of their houses, driven to migrate in the winter, he devours them without mercy.

CAN. NAT.

2

VOL. VI.

Respecting any special difference between the three varieties, I can see but very little. The cross fox is generally the largest, and the silver fox the most thickly furred. Some trappers profess to know by the shape of the foot, whether a specimen be that of a silver fox or not; their idea being that the foot of that variety is more rounded than the others. But I have often seen them mistaken. The foot-prints of a young fox of whatever colour, have always this appearance, and the foot of the female is more pointed than that of the male. A popular fallacy also prevails among the "winterers," that a silver fox is more cunning than one of any other colour. I imagine the scarcity of the silver variety originated this fancy.

The foxes of this district are generally of a very large size, and I am doubtful if they do not belong rather to the Macrourus than the Fulvus species. A series of measurements which I will hereafter get taken will decide the question.

The foxes inhabiting the barren grounds often present an appearance similar to that of the Sampson fox, the long hairs of the body and tail are wanting, leaving the soft woolly fur entirely exposed in some specimens, and in others partly so, particularly the sides of the thighs. The natives attribute this to their living so much in their holes, which are generally among rocks, and not roaming about so frequently as those inhabiting the wooded country which often do not visit their dens for weeks together.

The following table shows the proportion of each color traded in this district during the last ten years, and will give a very accurate idea of the relative number of each variety.

Foxes are most prevalent around the great lakes, and on the shores of the Arctic sea. On the Mackenzie River they are also tolerably numerous, but towards the Mountains up the Liard's River they become very scarce.

There are several methods by which foxes are caught and killed, which I will pass in review, detailing those which differ from any already described. 1. By wooden traps; 2. by gin or steel traps; 3. by set guns; 4. by snaring; 5. by hook and line; 6. by hunting; 7. by unearthing; 8. by ice-trap, and 9. by poisoning. Nos. 1, 2, 3 and 7, have been already noticed, I shall therefore commence with

No. 4, By snaring. This is not a very efficacious method,

and is used only by natives who have not steel traps or gins. An enclosure of twigs is made and the bait laid in the centre and a snare set in the entrance with a road fenced in like manner leading to it. The principle of construction is the same as in lynx-snaring, and alike in every respect excepting that the enclosure is larger. Foxes are sometimes found hung in snares set for rabbits.

5. By hook and line. This cannot be exactly considered a legitimate method of entrapping foxes, though I have seen one killed by it. An Indian at our establishment was visiting and arranging his lines for catching Loche (Gadus lota), when he observed a fox at a short distance from him regarding his operations; he immediately flung the baited hook towards it, and concealed himself behind a block of ice. Reynard approached, smelt rather suspiciously at the bait and at length swallowed it, whereupon the Indian without giving the animal time to cut the line, hauled in and killed it.

6. By hunting. This method is practised in the fall before there is enough snow to set the traps. The hunter conceals himself close to the fox's hole, and shoots him as he passes to it.

8. By ice-traps. This is a tolerably successful way, more so than by wooden traps. A block of ice of considerable weight is tilted on end at an angle of about 45°, a piece of stick supports this, placed well under the block, the lower end resting on the bait. The animal in his efforts to obtain the bait drags the stick off the perpendicular when the ice falls on him and kills him, This method is much used by the Yellow Knives to trap white foxes.

cess.

9. By poison. For this purpose strychnia is used. I have tried aconitine, atropine, and corrosive sublimate without sucThe two former may not have been pure enough, though I obtained them from the first chemical works in England and at a very high price. The only poison that I have found strong is strychnia. One or two grains of this are mixed with a little tallow, forming a small ball, and covered with a coating of grease outside to prevent the animal from tasting it. A quantity of pounded dried meat and morsels are strewn about so that the animal after swallowing the poison may be detained a sufficient time for it to operate. The distances which animals go before they die vary greatly; in some instances they fall directly, in others they run several miles with the same dose, and arranged in like