DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.70302#0336
300
ACCOUNT OF THE ARCTIC FOXES.
As they would not suffer us to be at rest either by night
or day, we became so exasperated at them, that we
killed them young and old, and destroyed them by every
means we could devise. When we awoke in the morn-
ing, there always lay two or three that had been knocked
on the head during the night; and I can safely affirm,
that during my stay upon the island, I killed above two
hundred of these animals with my own hands. On the
third day after my arrival, I knocked down with a club,
within the space of three hours, upwards of seventy of
them, and made a covering to my hut with their skins.
They were so ravenous that with one hand we could hold
to them a piece of flesh, and with a stick or an axe in
the other, could knock them on the head.
They have nine or ten cubs at a litter, which they
drop in holes and clefts of the rocks. They are so fond
of their young, that to drive us from them, they barked
and yelled like dogs, by which they betrayed their re-
treat : but no sooner do they perceive that it is disco-
vered, than, unless they be prevented, they drag away
the young in their mouths, and endeavour to conceal
them in some more secret place. If any one kills the
young, the dam will follow him, with dreadful howlings,
both night and day, for eighty or a hundred miles, and
will not desist till she has done her enemy some material
injury, or is herself killed by him.
In storms and heavy falls of snow, they bury them-
selves in the snow, where they lie as long as it lasts.
They swim across rivers with great dexterity. Besides
what is cast up by the sea, or destroyed by other beasts,
they seize the sea-fowl by night on the clefts where they
have settled to sleep ; but they, on the contrary, are them-
selves frequently victims to the birds of prey.
From all the circumstances that occurred during our
stay,
ACCOUNT OF THE ARCTIC FOXES.
As they would not suffer us to be at rest either by night
or day, we became so exasperated at them, that we
killed them young and old, and destroyed them by every
means we could devise. When we awoke in the morn-
ing, there always lay two or three that had been knocked
on the head during the night; and I can safely affirm,
that during my stay upon the island, I killed above two
hundred of these animals with my own hands. On the
third day after my arrival, I knocked down with a club,
within the space of three hours, upwards of seventy of
them, and made a covering to my hut with their skins.
They were so ravenous that with one hand we could hold
to them a piece of flesh, and with a stick or an axe in
the other, could knock them on the head.
They have nine or ten cubs at a litter, which they
drop in holes and clefts of the rocks. They are so fond
of their young, that to drive us from them, they barked
and yelled like dogs, by which they betrayed their re-
treat : but no sooner do they perceive that it is disco-
vered, than, unless they be prevented, they drag away
the young in their mouths, and endeavour to conceal
them in some more secret place. If any one kills the
young, the dam will follow him, with dreadful howlings,
both night and day, for eighty or a hundred miles, and
will not desist till she has done her enemy some material
injury, or is herself killed by him.
In storms and heavy falls of snow, they bury them-
selves in the snow, where they lie as long as it lasts.
They swim across rivers with great dexterity. Besides
what is cast up by the sea, or destroyed by other beasts,
they seize the sea-fowl by night on the clefts where they
have settled to sleep ; but they, on the contrary, are them-
selves frequently victims to the birds of prey.
From all the circumstances that occurred during our
stay,