Page:The American Cyclopædia (1879) Volume VII.djvu/366

 358 FOX ceptacle of the fulminate, this will not occur, and the primer will retain its sensitiveness. The variety of breech-loading weapons de- scribed in special treatises on this subject is very great. FOX (vulpe$, Guv.) a carnivorous animal be- longing to the vulpine division of the family canidce. Foxes may be distinguished from the dogs, wolves, and other diurnal canidce, by their lower stature, pointed muzzle, shorter neck, slender limbs, and long, bushy, and cylin- drical tail ; the fur is finer, thicker, and more glossy ; they diffuse a strong scent from a gland at the base of the tail, so that hounds can easily track them ; they dig burrows, and hunt at night, the pupil of the eye forming a vertical fissure ; the dentition is the same as that of the wolf and dog. Foxes are shy, cunning, sus- picious, cleanly, unsociable, and incapable of true domesticity ; their senses of sight, smell, and hearing are very acute, and their speed is great ; their tricks to escape their enemies and to seize their prey are so remarkable, that the epithet foxy is proverbially applied to the cun- ning, deceitful, and unscrupulous knave. Steal- ing from his hiding place at night, the fox fol- lows the steps of small animals, and pounces upon the hare in her form, and grouse, par- tridges, and pheasants on their nests; he is fond of fruit, especially grapes, and will eat squirrels, rats, moles, field mice, cheese, fish, and also small reptiles, insects, and even car- rion ; in cultivated districts he is fond of visit- ing the farm yard in search of poultry and eggs. Foxes are so cunning that they are very rarely taken in any kind of trap ; the favorite and surest way of destroying them is by meat poi- soned by strychnine, which is now familiarly employed for this purpose even by our remote Indian tribes. They bring forth once a year, from four to eight at a birth, the young being born with the eyes closed ; the breeding sea- son in the northern states begins toward the end of February, and gestation continues 60 to 65 days. There is considerable variety in the tones of the voice ; they lie down in a curved form, sleep profoundly, and, when watching birds, stretch the hind legs behind them, a habit noticed in some dogs ; they hunt singly, each one plundering for the satisfaction of his own appetite. Of the 14 or more well ascer- tained species, six are found in the United States ; they are distributed over the surface of both hemispheres, most abundantly in the north, and never, according to Hamilton Smith, south of the equator ; the resemblance between the species is greater than in other genera of the family. Prof. Baird restricts the genus vulpes to those species having a long muzzle, the tail with soft fur and long hair uniformly mixed, and the temporal crests of the skull com- ing nearly in contact, the red fox being the type of this section ; he proposes the genus urocyon for those species which, like the gray fox, have a short muzzle, the tail with a con- cealed mane of stiff hairs without any inter- mixture of soft fur, the temporal crests always widely separated, and the under jaw with an angular emargination below. The common American red fox (V.fuhus, Desrn.) has long, silky fur, with a full bushy tail tipped with white; the color is reddish yellow, grizzled American Ked Fox (Vulpes fulvus). with gray on the lower back ; throat and narrow line on the belly white ; back of ears and tips of the hair on the tail (except the terminal brush) black. The cross fox, the variety decussatus (Geoff.), has the muzzle, lower parts, and legs black, the tail blacker, and a dark band between the shoulders crossed by another over them ; this is found from northern New York to Canada and north- ern Michigan and Wisconsin, while the red variety occurs from Pennsylvania to Canada, and from the Atlantic to the Missouri. The silver or black fox, variety argentatus (Shaw), is black, except on the posterior back, where the hairs are ringed with gray, and the tip of the tail is white ; this is found in Washington territory. The European red fox is a different species, the fur being less soft and long, and the tail less bushy and more tapering ; the muzzle is longer, the eyes further apart, and the feet more slender ; the red color is darker and the tint more uniform, with little of the golden hue of the American species ; the space where the whiskers are inserted is white instead of dusky, and there is more white on the throat and belly ; this is the V. vulgaris (Briss.) ; it is found from Spain to Norway, and from Great Britain to eastern Russia. These species and varieties vary in length from nose to root of tail from 24 to 30 in., and the tail to end of hair from 16 to 20 in. From the fact that in the bone caves of the United States no skulls of the red fox have been found, while those of the gray fox are common, it is believed by many naturalists that the American red fox is a descendant of the Euro- pean V. vulgaris. The skin of the red fox is worth about $1 75, that of the cross fox about