Note 43 — PETER KALM’s TRAVELS. (continued 5)

Neither of these accounts appear to be satisfactory; and therefore I am inclined to believe that these red foxes originally came over from Asia, (most probably from Kamtchatka where this species is common, see Miller’s Account of the Navigations of the Russians, &c.) though in remote times, and thus spread over North America. It is perhaps true that the Indians never took notice of them till the Europeans were settled among them; this, however, was because they never had occasion to use their skins: but when there was a demand for these they began to hunt them, and, as they had not been much accustomed to them before, they esteemed them as a novelty. What gives additional confirmation to this is, that when the Russians under Commodore Bering landed on the western coast of America, they saw five red foxes which were quite tame, and seemed not to be in the least afraid of men: now this might very well have been the case if we suppose them to have been for many generations in a place where no body disturbed them; but we cannot account for it, if we imagine that they had been used to a country where there were many inhabitants, or where they had been much hunted. F. ↑