Читать книгу Wild Animals of North America - Edward William Nelson - Страница 26

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Red foxes are characterized by their rusty red fur, black-fronted fore legs, and white-tipped tail. They inhabit the forested regions in the temperate and subarctic parts of both Old and New Worlds, and, like other types of animal life having a wide range, they break up into numerous distinct species and geographic races.

In America they originally ranged over nearly all the forested region from the northern limit of trees in Alaska and Canada south, east of the Great Plains, to Texas; also down the Rocky Mountains to middle New Mexico, and down the Sierra Nevada to the Mount Whitney region of California. They are unknown on the treeless plains of the West, including the Great Basin. Originally they were apparently absent from the Atlantic and Gulf States from Maryland to Louisiana, but have since been introduced and become common south to middle Georgia and Alabama.

Wherever red foxes occur they show great mental alertness and capacity to meet the requirements of their surroundings. In New England they steadily persist, though their raids on poultry yards have for centuries set the hand of mankind against them. For a time conditions favored them in parts of the Middle Atlantic States, for the sport of hunting to hounds was imported from England, and the foxes had partial protection. This exotic amusement has now passed and the fox must everywhere depend on his nimble wits for safety.

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.