Heads and tales

by Unknown

Arctic Fox. (Canis Lagopus.)

Sir James Ross found a fox's burrow on the sandy margin of a lake in the month of July. It had several passages, each opening into a common cell, beyond which was an inner nest, in which the young, six in number, were found. These had the dusky, lead-coloured livery worn by the parents in summer; and though four of them were kept alive till the following winter, they never acquired the pure white coats of the old fox, but retained the dusky colour on the face and sides of the body. The parents had kept a good larder for their progeny, as the outer cell and the several passages leading to it contained many lemmings and ermines, and the bones of fish, ducks, and hares, in great quantities. Sir John Richardson[115] observed them to live in villages, twenty or thirty burrows being constructed close to each other. A pair were kept by Sir James Ross for the express purpose of watching the changes which take place in the colour of their fur. He noticed that they threw off their winter dress during the first week in June, and that this change took place a few days earlier in the female than in the male. About the end of September the brown fur of the summer gradually became of an ash colour, and by the middle of October it was perfectly white. It continued to increase in thickness until the end of November.[116] A variety of a blackish-brown colour is occasionally met with, but this is rare: such specimens, Ross remarks, must have extreme difficulty in surprising their prey in a country whose surface is of an unvaried white, and must also be much more exposed to the persecutions of their enemies. The food of this fox is various, but seems to consist principally of lemmings and of birds and their eggs. He eats, too, the berries of the Empetrum nigrum, a plant common on our own hills, and goes to the shore for mussels and other shell-fish. Otho Fabricius[117] says he catches the Arctic salmon as that fish approaches the shore to spawn, and that he seizes too the haddock, having enticed it near by beating the water. Crantz, in his "History of Greenland," evidently alludes to this cunning habit when he observes, "They plash with their feet in the water, to excite the curiosity of some kinds of fishes to come and see what is going forward, and then they snap them up; and the Greenland women have learnt this piece of art from them." Captain Lyon noticed a fox prowling on a hill-side, and heard him for some hours afterwards in the neighbourhood imitating the cry of the brent-goose. In another part of his Journal he mentions that the bark is so modulated as to give an idea that it proceeds from a distance, though at the time the fox lies at your feet. It struck him that the creature was gifted "with this kind of ventriloquism in order to deceive its prey as to the distance it is from them." It sometimes catches the ptarmigan; and though it cannot swim, it manages occasionally to get hold of oceanic birds; in fact, nothing alive which it can master seems to come amiss, and failing to make a meal from something it has caught and killed, the Arctic fox is glad, like foxes in more favoured lands, to feed on carrion.

Captain M'Clintock, who commanded the yacht Fox on the Franklin Arctic search in 1857 and 1858, wintered in the ice pack of Baffin's Bay. One of the party shot an Arctic fox when they were 140 miles from the land. He records in a letter to his brother,[118] that this wanderer from the shore "was very fat, living upon such few dovekies as were silly enough to spend their winter in the pack."

Martens, in his "Spitzbergen," says, that some of the ship's crew informed him, that the fox when he is hungry "lies down as if he was dead, until the birds fly to him to eat him, which by that trick he catches and eats." Our author believed it a fable, but it may nevertheless be one of the many expedients used by a species of a group whose name is proverbial for craftiness and cunning.

The flesh of the fox is occasionally eaten by the Esquimaux: Captain Lyon, in his "Private Journal," says that at first all of his party were horrified at the idea of eating foxes—"But very many soon got the better of their fastidiousness and found them good eating; not being myself very nice, I soon made the experiment, and found the flesh much resembling that of kid, and afterwards frequently had a supper of it."

Sir James Clarke Ross, during his five years' imprisonment in Boothia Felix and the adjoining seas, had ample means of judging of its flavour; he tells us that some of his party, who were the first to taste them, named them "lambs," from their resemblance in flavour to very young lamb. He adds, that the flesh of the old fox is by no means so palatable. During that disastrous expedition the flesh of this fox formed one of the principal luxuries of their table, and it was always "reserved for holidays and great occasions. We ate them boiled, or, more frequently after being parboiled, roasted, in a pitch kettle."

When the Arctic Expedition in search of Franklin wintered in Leopold Harbour in 1848-49, the commander, Sir J. C. Ross, made use of the Arctic fox as a messenger. Having caught some of these animals in traps, a collar with information for the missing parties was put round the neck of each before liberation, as the fox is known to travel great distances in search of food. On Captain Austin's subsequent expedition in 1850-51 the same plan was carried out, but it was found to be equally without result. Commander Osborn thus facetiously describes the circumstance.[119] "Several animals thus intrusted with despatches or records were liberated by different ships; but, as the truth must be told, I fear in many cases the next night saw the poor 'postman,' as Jack termed him, in another trap, out of which he would be taken, killed, the skin taken off, and packed away to ornament at some future day the neck of some fair Dulcinea. As a 'sub,' I was admitted into this secret mystery, or, otherwise, I with others might have accounted for the disappearance of the collared foxes by believing them busy on their honourable mission. In order that the crime of killing 'the postmen' may be recognised in its true light, it is but fair that I should say, that the brutes, having partaken once of the good cheer on board or around the ships, seldom seemed satisfied with the mere empty honours of a copper collar, and returned to be caught over and over again. Strict laws were laid down for their safety, such as that no fox taken alive in a trap was to be killed: of course no fox was after this taken alive; they were all unaccountably dead, unless it was some fortunate wight whose brush and coat were worthless; in such case he lived either to drag about a quantity of information in a copper collar for the rest of his days, or else to die a slow death, as being intended for Lord Derby's menagerie. The departure of 'a postman' was a scene of no small merriment; all hands, from the captain to the cook, were out to chase the fox, who, half frightened out of its wits, seemed to doubt which way to run, whilst loud shouts and roars of laughter, breaking the cold, frosty air, were heard from ship to ship, as the foxhunters, swelled in numbers from all sides, and those that could not run mounted some neighbouring hummock of ice and gave a loud halloo, which said far more for robust health than for tuneful melody."

The Arctic fox as a captive has often amused our Arctic voyagers, and accounts of it are to be met with in most of their narratives. Captain Lyon made a pet of one he captured, and confined it on deck in a small kennel with a piece of chain. The little creature astonished the party very much by his extraordinary sagacity, for, on the very first day, having been repeatedly drawn out by his chain, he at length drew his chain in after him whenever he retreated to his hut, and took it in with his mouth so completely, that no one who valued his fingers would venture afterwards to take hold of the end attached to the staple.

Sir J. C. Ross observed in Boothia Felix a good deal of difference in the disposition of specimens, some being easily tamed, whilst others would remain savage and untractable even with the kindest treatment. He found the females much more vicious than the males. A dog-fox which his party captured lived several months with them, and became so tame in a short time that he regularly attended the dinner-table like a dog, and was always allowed to go at large about the cabin. When newly caught their rage is quite ungovernable, and yet when two are put together they very seldom quarrel. They soon get reconciled to confinement. Captain Lyon[120] notices that their first impulse on getting food is to hide it as soon as possible, and this, he observed, they did, even when hungry and by themselves; when there was snow on the ground they piled it over their stores, and pressed it down forcibly with their nose. When no snow was to be obtained, he noticed his pet fox gather the chain into his mouth, and then carefully coil it so as to cover the meat. Having gone through this process, and drawn away his chain after him on moving away, he has sometimes repeated his useless labours five or six times, until disgusted, apparently, at the inability of making the morsel a greater luxury by previous concealment, he has been forced to eat it. These creatures use snow as a substitute for water, and it is pleasing to see them break a large lump with their feet, and roll on the pieces with evident delight. When the snow lay lightly scattered on the decks, they did not lick it up as dogs do, but by pressing it repeatedly with their nose, collected a small lump which they drew into their mouth.