THE FOX. 61

the animals are fattened on the spoils of the vineyard
during the vintage.

' The common fox of England (Canis Vulpes) is fawn-
coloured, intermixed with black and white. The arctic
species (C. lagopus) is usually of a bluish-grey colour,
though sometimes found entirely white ; it inhabits the cold
regions of the polar circle, particularly in Kamtchatka, sub-
sisting on young wild geese and other water-fowl. Steller
relates, that when he was travelling, he met with great
numbers of these little animals. “When we made a halt by
the way,” he writes, “they gathered round us, and played a
thousand tricks in our view. When we sat still they ap-
proached us so closely, that they gnawed our shoe-strings ;
if we lay down, as if intending to sleep, they came and
smelt at our noses, to ascertain whether we were dead or
alive.” There are various other species in both the Old
and New Worlds.

The common fox was, and still is, of frequent occurrence
in Palestine; but as the original word Shua/ was equally
used by the Hebrews to signify the Jackal (Plate I.), it
is believed by commentators, that this latter animal is, in
most cases, meant. It is the Canis aureus of naturalists,
about the size of the fox, the colour dirty yellow above and