Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 5.djvu/460

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been validated.
444
THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

defect in the representation; for the original drawing was made by an anatomist[1] and engraved by one[2] whose previous work upon natural history objects has convinced him of the need for accuracy and restraint of the artistic imagination.

Certainly the non-resemblance of the little one to its mother would have been enough to shake my belief in the statement of relationship, had not both the specimens and the statement come together from a naturalist[3] who received them direct from the hunters; and my first impulse was to publish the figure incognito as a zoological conundrum.

The most obvious difference is in color: the throat and chest of the old fox are whitish, also the tip of the tail; the back of the ears, the front and outer surface of the paws to near the elbows and knees, are black, and there are scattered black hairs on the tail; the rest of the body is reddish brown; and as a whole the animal would be called a "red fox," although a stripe across the shoulders of a darker red might entitle it to the name of "cross" fox. Now, at first sight,

  1. My friend and former pupil, Dr. W. S. Barnard.
  2. Mr. Philip Barnard, of Chicago, now a student in Cornell University.
  3. Dr. J. T. Rothrock, of Wilkesbarre, Pennsylvania, now attached to one of the United States surveying expeditions.