Note 57 — Secondly, Of Beasts.[45]

“There are two or three kinds of them,—one a great yellow fox; another grey, who will climb up into trees. The black fox is of much esteem.”—Josselyn’s Voyages, p. 82; where is also an account of the way of hunting foxes in New England. Wood has nothing special, but that some of the foxes “be black. Their furrs is of much esteem” (l. c.) Williams (l. c.) has “mishquashim, a red fox; pequawus, a gray fox. The Indians say they have black foxes, which they have often seen, but never could take any of them. They say they are manittooes.” Beside the common red fox, or mishquashim, we have in all these accounts—and also in Morell’s Nova Anglia, l. c., p. 129—mention of a black fox; which may have been the true black or silver fox, or, in part at least, the more common cross-fox (Aud. and Bachm., Viv. Quadr. N. A., p. 45); the pelt of which is also in high esteem. For Williams’s gray fox, see the next note. Josselyn’s climbing gray fox is perhaps the fisher (Mustela Canadensis, Schreb.), notwithstanding the color. According to Audubon (l. c., pp. 51, 310, 315), this is called the black fox in New England and the northern counties of New York. I have heard it more often called black cat in New Hampshire. But the true gray fox (Vulpes Virginianus) “has, to a certain degree, the power of climbing trees.” Newberry Zoology, Expl. for Pacific Railroad, vi, part 4, p. 40.