Since the days of Æsop’s fables tales of foxes and their doings have had their place in literature as well as in the folk-lore of the countryside. Many of their amazing wiles to outwit pursuers or to capture their prey give evidence of extraordinary mental powers.
Their bill of fare includes many items, as mice, birds, reptiles, insects, many kinds of fruits, and on rare occasions a chicken. The bad name borne by them among farmers, due to occasional raids on the poultry yard, is largely unwarranted. They kill enormous numbers of mice and other small rodents each year, and thus well repay the loss of a chicken now and then.
Red foxes apparently pair for life and occupy dens dug by themselves in a secluded knoll or among rocks. These dens, which are sometimes occupied for years in succession, always have two or more entrances opening in opposite directions, so that an enemy entering on one side may be readily eluded. The young, numbering up to eight or nine, are tenderly cared for by both parents.
Although they have been persistently hunted and trapped in North America since the earliest times, they still yield a royal annual tribute of furs. It is well known that the highly prized cross, as well as the precious black, and silver gray foxes are merely color phases occurring in litters of the ordinary red animal. Black skins are so highly prized that specially fine ones have sold for more than $2,500 each in the London market. The reward thus offered has resulted in the development of black fox fur-farms, which have been very successful in parts of Canada and the United States, thus originating a valuable new industry.
By the modern regulation of trapping, foxes and other fur-bearers are destined to survive wherever conditions are favorable. In addition to the economic value of foxes, the location of an occasional fox den here and there on the borders of a woodland tract, the meandering tracks in the snow, and the occasional glimpse of animals cautiously making their rounds add a keen touch of primitive nature well worth preserving in any locality.
ALASKA RED FOX (Vulpes kenaiensis)
The red fox of the Kenai Peninsula, Alaska, and the adjacent mainland is probably the largest of its kind in the world, although those of Kodiak Island and of the Mackenzie River valley are nearly as large. Compared with its relatives of the United States, the Kenai fox is a giant, with heavier, duller-colored coat and a huge tail, more like that of a wolf than of a fox. The spruce and birch forests of Alaska and the Mackenzie Valley are apparently peculiarly adapted to red foxes, as shown by the development there of these animals—good illustrations of the relative increase in size and vigor of animals in a specially favorable environment.
As noted in the general account of the red foxes, the occurrence of the black phase is sporadic, and the relative number of dark individuals varies greatly in different parts of their range. The region about the upper Yukon and its tributaries and the Mackenzie River basin are noted for the number of black foxes produced, apparently a decidedly greater proportion than in any other similarly large area. The prices for which these black skins sell in the London market prove them to be of equal quality with those from any other area.
Like other red foxes, the Alaskan species digs its burrows, with several entrances, in some dry secluded spot, where both male and female share in the care of the young. In northern wilds the food problem differs from that in a settled country. There the surrounding wild life is the only dependence, and varying hares, lemmings, and other mice are usually to be had by the possessor of a keen scent and an active body. In summer many nesting wild-fowl and their young are easy prey, while heathberries and other northern fruits are also available.
Winter brings a season of scarcity, when life requires the exercise of every trained faculty. The snow-white ptarmigan is then a prize to be gained only by the most skillful stalking, and the white hare is almost equally difficult to secure. At this season foxes wander many miles each day, their erratic tracks in the snow telling the tale of their industrious search for prey in every likely spot. It is in this season of insistent hunger that many of them fall victims to the wiles of trappers or to the unscrupulous hunter who scatters poisoned baits.