Arctic fox

“ The Arctic fox, clothed in long, fluffy white fur, is an extremely handsome animal, about two-thirds the size of the common red fox. It is a circumpolar species, which in America ranges over all the barren grounds beyond the limit of trees, including the coastal belt of tundra from the Peninsula of Alaska to Bering Straits, the Arctic islands, and the frozen sea to beyond 83 degrees of latitude. ”

“ The white coats of the Arctic Foxes, who live in a world of white, are of great help to them when hunting, or when trying to escape from enemies. It is difficult to see them against their white surroundings. In summer their food consists very largely of ducks and other wild fowl which nest in great numbers in the Far North. In the winter they hunt for Lemmings, Arctic Hares and a cousin of Mrs. Grouse called the Ptarmigan, who lives up there. They pick the bones left by Polar Bears and Wolves. Getting a living in winter is not easy, and so the Arctic Fox is a great traveler. ”

“ I submit that the beautiful case in the Central Hall of the Natural History Museum at South Kensington—showing an Arctic fox, in its white winter coat, approaching a Polar hare, also in winter dress, and an ermine (stoat) hunting for ptarmigan (evidently by sight) —gives an entirely false view of the struggle for life as carried on by animals inhabiting the Arctic Regions, for it conveys the idea of the carnivorous animals of those snow-covered wastes hunting for their prey in a bright light and by eyesight alone. ”

“ 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 extreme parts of North America, and the country around the Frozen Sea, are those which the Arctic fox principally inhabits. These animals are principally killed on account of their skins, their fur being light and warm, though not durable. In winter this changes to a white colour, and becomes much thicker. The inhabitants of Greenland split the tendons, and use them as thread; they also sometimes eat the flesh of these animals. ”

“ 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. ”

“ What it feeds upon during the rest of the year is rather doubtful. It cannot catch birds, for they have all flown away farther south. It cannot catch fishes, for the water is covered in by ice several feet in thickness. Most likely it catches numbers of those odd little animals known as lemmings just as winter begins, and stores them away in a kind of larder, where the cold prevents their bodies from decaying.
The arctic fox is a good deal smaller than the common fox, and has ears so short and rounded that they look just as if they had been cropped. ”

“ The Arctic fox, Canis lagopus, is an animal known to those who winter in Spitzbergen, though seldom seen by the whale-fishers. They are rarely found on the ice, though I have often found their impressions on the snow. They are of a white colour, and not easily distinguished.
A more remarkable animal is the Polar or Greenland bear, Ursus maritimus. He is the sovereign of the quadrupeds of the Arctic countries. He is powerful and courageous ”

“ The length, from snout to root of tail, is about two feet, that of the tail itself about a foot.
An interesting account of the manners and customs of this pretty little animal is given by Sir J. Richardson, who says:—
“The Arctic Fox is an extremely cleanly animal, being very careful not to dirt those places in which he eats or sleeps. No unpleasant smell is to be perceived, even in a male, which is a remarkable circumstance. ”

“ On the other hand, the arctic hare must equally be drest in a snow-white coat, or the arctic fox would too readily discover him and pounce down upon him off-hand; while conversely, the fox himself, if red or brown, could never creep upon the unwary hare without previous detection, which would defeat his purpose. ”

“ Thus well-preserved skeletons of arctic fox, having their milk teeth, have been found lying side by side with the bones of the lemmings. As the arctic fox breeds in June, it is obvious that those young individuals must have died in summer. ”

“ These arctic foxes really build small cities, and their semi-social life may be accounted for by the peculiar suitability of the place which they select for a habitation. Their homes are usually in a sandy hill, where it is very easy for them to burrow; and the strangest part of the whole city is that each burrow is complete and entirely independent in itself. There are many winding paths and tunnels in each house, but each belongs exclusively to its owner and never winds into a neighbour's house. In case of danger the fox has many directions in which he may escape. ”

“ The food of the Arctic fox includes nearly all species of the wild-fowl which each summer swarm into the far North to breed. There on the tundras congregate myriads of ducks, geese, and waders, while on the cliffs and rocky islands are countless gulls and other water birds. In winter they find lemmings and other northern mice, occasional Arctic hares, and ptarmigan, as well as fragments of prey left by Arctic wolves or polar bears. ”

“ Our knowledge of the former distribution of the arctic lemmings is no doubt not so full as it will yet be, but already we have ascertained that these creatures ranged as far south as central France and the base of the Alps, in Switzerland, and as far west as Somerset, in England. Besides the arctic fox, many other northern forms were congeners of the lemmings in middle and western Europe, such as mountain hare, muskox, reindeer, glutton, voles of various kinds, ermine, weasel, wolf, common fox, and the now extinct mammoth and woolly rhinoceros. ”

“ When the days were shrunken to an hour or two of sunlight, and the tundra was frozen to stone, and the winds drove the fine snow before them in blinding drifts, then Blue Fox dismissed his stores from his mind and devoted himself merrily to the hunting of his daily rations. The Arctic hares were still abundant, and not yet overwild from ceaseless harrying; and though the chase of these long-legged and nimble leapers was no facile affair, it was by no means too arduous for the tastes of an enterprising and active forager like Blue Fox. ”

“ They are so remarkably hardy, that the most rigorous severity of winter in these regions, [Pg 79] never stops their search of prey. They are excellent swimmers, and are often seen passing from one island to another, especially at the time when bird-nests are to be found. Some zoologists have affirmed, that they are harmless, simple, and easily taken; but Fabricius assures us that they possess all the wildness and cunning of the vulpes, or fox of these kingdoms. Fabricius says, the Arctic fox has three different kinds of voices [14] . Its smell is not so fetid as that of the common fox. ”

“ It is a clever and cunning animal, being often able to elude the hounds in the chase. The Arctic fox, which ranges southward to Labrador and Newfoundland, has beautiful silky fur, bluish or brown in summer and pure white in winter. The black fox or silver fox holds first place among fur-bearers ”

“ The red fox is found throughout the greater part of Canada and the United States except in the far south where it is replaced by the gray species and in the extreme northern portions of Canada and Alaska, where it gives place to the Arctic fox, also they are not found in the far western states nor on the Pacific coast, being replaced here by the gray. ”

“ Far up under the Arctic circle lives the little white or Arctic fox, so valuable for its fur; and in California still another species known as the coast fox. The so-called silver or blue, or black, or cross fox, is only the red fox with a blackish or bluish coat. ”

“ To his great astonishment and chagrin, as he neared the wounded animal the fox, lamed and bleeding, sprang up and ran off at such a pace that he escaped.
It may be added that the arctic fox, while noted for his courage and endurance, is not skilled against traps or pitfalls, but shows a proneness to be caught that borders at times on stupidity. ”

“ With regard to the animal creation, the general law of polar uniformity was fully confirmed in Taimurland. The same lemmings were found which people the whole north of Asia and America, and as high as 75° N. lat. they found the traces of the snow-hare, which inhabits the complete circle of the Arctic regions of the globe. The Arctic fox, everywhere at home in the treeless wastes, is here also pursued by the northern glutton; and following the herds of the reindeer, the wolves, and the Samoïedes, roams up and down the tundra. ”

“ This little creature is an inhabitant of the prairies, where it makes its burrows far from any wood. It is extremely shy, and the swiftest animal in the prairie country—outrunning even the antelope!
When Lucien saw the fox he thought no more of the ermine, but drew back and crouched down, in hopes he might get a shot at the larger animal. He knew well that the flesh of the Arctic fox is highly esteemed as food, particularly by persons situated as he and his companions were, and he hoped to be able to add it to their larder. ”

“ Sables, ermine, wolverines, minks, land otters, beavers and musk-rats have always been important items in the fur trade. There are black, grizzly and polar bears, and also two exclusively Alaskan species, the Kodiak and the glacier bear. The grey wolf is common; it is the basal stock of the Alaskan sledge-dog. The red fox is widely distributed, and the white or Arctic fox is very common along the eastern coast of Bering Sea; a blue fox, once wild, is now domesticated on Kodiak and the Aleutians, and on the southern continental coast, and a black fox, very rare, occurs in south-eastern Alaska ”

“ Among the carnivorous quadrupeds of the northern regions, many, like the lynx, the wolf, the bear, the glutton, and other members of the weasel tribe, have their head-quarters in the forests, and only occasionally roam over the tundras;42 but the Arctic fox (Canis lagopus) almost exclusively inhabits the treeless wastes that fringe the Polar Ocean, and is found on almost all the islands that lie buried in its bosom. ”

“ At Petersen's Greenland home, Upernivik, the land has sunk, [70] as is plainly shown by similar ruins over which the tides now flow.
THRIFT OF THE ARCTIC FOX.
Anything which illustrates the habits of animals in such extremely high latitudes I think is most interesting; their instincts must be quickened in proportion as the difficulty of subsisting increases. Foxes, white and blue, are very numerous; all the birds are merely summer visitors, therefore the hare is the only creature remaining upon which foxes can prey ”

“ Over the place of that safe sleep and secret motherhood no live thing passed, all winter long,—save once or twice a small white fox, who sniffed cautiously at a faint, menacing scent which stole up through the hard snow, and once or twice the wide, soundless wings of a great white Arctic owl, winnowing southward to find the vanished ptarmigan.
Late and lagging came the beginnings of the dawn,—and then, much later, when dawn had [Pg 6] grown into the long day, the beginnings of the Arctic spring. Something called to the heart of the old she-bear, and she heard in the deep of her lair. ”

“ These foxes obtain a very precarious subsistence, - 239 - and they may be seen at almost any time scampering over the ice, seeking the tracks of the bears, which they follow with the instinct of the jackal following the lion; not that they try their strength against these roving monarchs of the ice-fields, but, whenever the bear catches a seal, the little fox comes in for a share of the prey. Their food consists besides of an occasional ptarmigan, (the Arctic grouse,) and if quick in his spring he may be lucky enough to capture a hare. ”

“ Some notes on the general results obtained by the expedition in zoology, botany, and geology, have appeared in the Academy. The two naturalists under whose care these departments [334] were placed,—Captain Feilden, in the Alert, and Mr. Hart, in the Discovery,—worked with unflagging energy and no small success.
Of mammals, the species found farthest north were the Arctic fox, the wolf, the ermine, the Polar hare, the lemming, and the musk-ox,—all of which were seen on the shores of the great Polar Basin or Palæocrystic Sea. No cetaceans were sighted north of Payer Harbour, near Cape Sabine ”

“ In summer it is of an ashy colour, with a tawny tinge on the back, a dusky streak along its middle, and a pale stripe on either side. It has the repute of being exceedingly inoffensive; and is tamed so easily that, when caught, it becomes reconciled to its captivity in a day or two, and will soon show itself sensible of its master’s caresses. In winter it is perfectly white,—white as snow, from which it can be distinguished only by the keen scent of the fox or the Eskimo dog. ”

“ CHAPTER XVIII UNDER THE NORTH STAR—WHERE FOX AND ERMINE RUN I Of Foxes, Many and Various—Red, Cross, Silver, Black, Prairie, Kit or Swift, Arctic, Blue, and Gray
Wherever grouse and rabbit abound, there will foxes run and there will the hunter set steel-traps. But however beautiful a fox-skin may be as a specimen, it has value as a fur only when it belongs to one of three varieties—Arctic, black, and silver. Other foxes—red, cross, prairie, swift, and gray—the trapper will take when they cross his path and sell them in the gross at the fur post, as he used to barter buffalo-hides. ”