Horváth Géza (szerk.): A Magyar Természettudományi Múzeum évkönyve 23. (Budapest 1926)

Ognev, S. I.: A systematic review of the mammals of Russia

E. BEASS (loc. cit. p. 454) describes the Norwegian fox as very vivid and intensive in colour with a very long, soft fur. This Norvégián fox, which is, according to BRASS, a special form V. vulpes septentrionalis, has a longer tail than our central Russian fox and is taller. TH. D. PLESKE kindly informed me, that in the region of Russian Lapland one meets also with very intensively coloured Norwegian foxes. According to the words of PLESKE, such foxes were shot as rarities in the neighbourhood of St. Petersburg, near the Finnish border. TH. D. PLESKE happened to see such a fox himself. There is no doubt, that it would be very interesting to find an exact explanation of the question of the correlation of the typical Swedish V. vulpes vulpes L. and V. v. septentrionalis BRASS. This problem has not yet been approached in literature, and G. S. MILLER in his Catalogue of the Mammals of Western Europe (1912) does not even mention the fox, sufficiently well described by E. BRASS. In the central black-earth zone of European Russia one meets a comparatively large pale fox: V. v. diluta OGNEV; on the steppes of Southern Russia dwells V. v. stepensis BRAUNER; both of these foxes represent a kind of transition to V. v. karagan ERXL. By the way, I shall state here a typical law: the more South, the paler and the lighter the colouring of the fox, and the worse the quality of the fur. This obvious rule stands out with great distinction only in the regions of the plains, the foxes being the palest on the open spaces of the steppes. In mountainous regions the colouring of the fur becomes deeper again. Closing our review of foxes of European Russia, I shall point out, that in the Crimea (in its mountainous part) persists the typical small mountainous V. v. krymea-montana BRAUNER, and from the Caucasus several forms may be noted : V. v. caucasica DINNICK (mountainous part of Cis-Caucasus), V. v. alticola OGN. (central part of the Transcaucasus), V. v. kurdistanica SATUN. (Western Transcaucasus), V. v. Alpherakyi SATUN. (Eastern Transcaucasus). It is possible, that in a country, so extroardinarily rich in heterogeneous stations, as is the Caucasus, new and until now unknown forms of this interesting beast of prey will be discovered. Foxes of Western and Eastern Siberia will be spoken of further on, in an article on separate forms. Geographical distribution. — In this general article I shall give a description of the distribution of the fox upon the whole extension of European Russia and the Crimea, after which I shall try, as far as it is possible, to point out the regions of the habitations of separate sub-species. In the North the fox is frequently met with on the peninsula of Kolsk, gvt.