Specimens examined.—Los Angeles County: 6 mi. E and 2 mi. S Llano, 3600 ft., 3 (2 PC).
Vulpes macrotis arsipus Elliot
Kit Fox
The kit fox barely enters the area under consideration. In the Joshua tree belt, below about 3500 feet elevation, tracks were most often noted in washes and on the adjacent sandy ground. The highest place where tracks were seen was a small sandy draw below the mouth of Graham Canyon at an altitude of roughly 3900 feet.
In the Joshua tree belt many old burrows were found but none was occupied. I believe these foxes are returning to this area where once they were common. In the winter of 1948 no sign of kit foxes was found, although intensive field work was done in the Joshua tree belt in the Mescal Canyon area. In December of 1951, in the same locality, sign was obvious and an individual was trapped below Grandview Canyon at 3500 feet elevation. Possibly since the use of poison for carnivores has been discontinued in this district the foxes are repopulating the area.
The one specimen taken, a sub-adult female, weighed two pounds and fourteen ounces.
Specimen examined.—Los Angeles Co.: 6 mi. E & 1 mi. S Llano, 3500 ft., 1.
Urocyon cinereoargenteus californicus Mearns
Gray Fox
The gray fox is widely distributed in the San Gabriel Mountains, occurring on both slopes of the range wherever extensive tracts of chaparral are present. They reach maximum abundance in the chaparral association of the coastal slope. Individuals have been observed occasionally at night in coastal sage areas at the Pacific foot of the mountains; however they seem to be less common here and probably come out of the adjacent chaparral to forage in the flats at night. Gray foxes occur all the way up the Pacific slope into the yellow pine woodland at 7500 feet, and from 6200 feet elevation on the desert slope down to the upper limit of the Joshua trees as, for example, near Mescal Canyon at 4700 feet.