ature made him for a pet dog
instead of a fox, is slighted by the hunter, unless kit persists in
tempting a trap. Rufus the red fellow, with his grizzled gray head and
black ears and whitish throat and flaunting purplish tinges down his
sides like a prince royal, may make a handsome mat; but as a fur he is
of little worth. His cousin with the black fore feet, the prairie fox,
who is the largest and strongest and scientifically finest of all his
kind, has more value as a fur. The colour of the prairie fox shades
rather to pale ochre and yellow that the nondescript grizzled gray that
is of so little value as a fur. Of the silver-gray fox little need be
said. He lives too far south--California and Texas and Mexico--to
acquire either energy or gloss. He is the one indolent member of the fox
tribe, and his fur lacks the sheen that only winter cold can give. The
value of the cross fox depends on the markings that give him his name.
If the bands, running diagonally over his shoulders in the shape of a
cross, shade to grayish blue he is a prize, if to reddish russet, he is
only a curiosity.

The Arctic and black and silver foxes have the pelts that at their worst
equal the other rare furs, at their best exceed the value of all other
furs by so much that the lucky trapper who takes a silver fox has made
his fortune. These, then, are the foxes that the trapper seeks and these
are to be found only on the white wastes of the polar zone.

That brings up the question--what is a silver fox? Strange as it may
seem, neither scientist nor hunter can answer that question. Nor will
study of all the park specimens in the world tell the secret, for the
simple reason that only an Arctic climate can produce a silver fox; and
parks are not established in the Arctics yet. It is quite plain that the
prairie fox is in a class by himself. The uniformity of his size, his
strength, his habits, his appearance, distinguish him from other foxes.
It is quite plain that the little kit fox or swift is of a kind distinct
from other foxes. His smallness, the shape of his bones, the cast of his
face, the trick of sitting rather than lying, that wonderful big bushy
soft tail of which a peacock might be vain--all differentiate him from
other foxes. The same may be said of the Arctic fox with a pelt that is
more like white wool than hairs of fur. He is much smaller than the red.
His tail is bushier and larger than the swift, and like all Arctic
creatures, he ha