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

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

of Arkhangelsk, on the Solovetzky Isles, in the marshy plains (toondras) of Canine and on the Kolgueff Isle; it is extremely rare on the New-Land (Novaja Zemlia), but persists continually, especially at the South of the isle, for instane near the Nicolsky Shar. Further, the fox is widely spread in the marshy plains (toondras) of the region of Petchorsk, of the Northern Ural; it is very numerous in the mountains of the Ural in the Bogolovsky district, along the river Sosva and in the neighbourhood of the Turiin mines. Along the Volga and the Kama it is common everywhere. In the district of the lower Volga is very usual in some places, both in the valley of the river as well as in the Mugodjarsky mountains, in the land of the Ural Cossacks, in the sands of the half-desert of Astrakhan, down to the very sea-shore. It is common in the region of the Don, in the Crimea, in the plains, as well as in the mountains. This beast of prey is vastly spread throughout the southern and central parts of European Russia, in Poland, as well as in the former Baltic provinces. Owing to want of material it is difficult to establish the precise geographical limits of different sub-species of foxes, inhabiting European Russia. The peninsula of Kolsk, the coasts of the White Sea, the marshy plains of the gvt. of Arkhangelsk and the Bolshe-Zemelskaya (Great) toondra is inhabited by a form, probably most closely approaching the typical V. vulpes L. Already beginning from the shores of the lake of Onega and the district of Lodeinopol of the gvt. of Olonetz, as well as gvt. of St. Petersburg, one meets the fox, which is nearest to the central Russian one; its position as of a sub-species and its relation to V. v. crucigera BECHST. I consider as an open question. The distribution of this form embraces all of the northern and central foresty region of European Russia. In the South this sub-species is frequent in the forests sporadically remained intact, as e. g. in the wooded parts of the gvts. of Tambov and Voronesh. Where the forests disappeared, in the moulds of the central Russian region one may meet with V. v. diluta OGN., which lives either in steppe ravines, or in old burrows of marmots. Further to the South, beginning with about the central part of the district of the Cossack troops of the Don, across the gvts. of Tauride, Ekaterinoslav, Kherson, Bessarabia, Kamenetz-Podolsk, down to the district of Zvenigorod of the gvt. of Kiev and very likely, to the South of the gvts. of Poltava and Kharkov is frequent the small V. v. stepensis BRAUNER, which reaches the plains of the Cis-Caucasus. So, for instance, the specimen procured by K. N. ROSSIKOV in the steppe, close by the station Prochladnaya and belongig to the Museum of the Academy of Sciences, undoubtedly belongs to that sub-species.