Adventure Magazine Cover — page 194: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

186 OLD SONGS THAT MEN HAVE SUNG ROBERT FROTHINGHAM, 745 Riverside Drive, New York City. A department for collecting hitherto unpublished specimens and for answering questions concerning all songs of the out-of-doors that have had sufficient virility to out- last their immediate day; ohanteys, ‘‘forebitters,’’ ballads —songs of outdoor men—sailors, lum'erjacks, soldiers, cowboys, pioneers, rivermen, canal-men, men of the Great Lakes, voyageurs, railroad men, miners, hoboes, plantation hands, etc. FISHING IN NORTH AMERICA Salt and Fresh Water Fishing J. B. THompson, 906 Pontiac Bldg., Chicago, Ill. Cover- ing fishing-tackle and equipment; fly and bait casting and bait; camping-outfits; fishing-trips. MOUNTAINS and MOUNTAINEERING Especially of New England. ARTHUR BENT, Appalachian Mountain Club, 1050 Tremont Bldg., Boston, Mass. STANDING INFORMATION For information on trade in any part oi the world, address J. L. Brnpa, National Foreign Trade Council, 1 Hanover Sq., New York. Thank Yeu, Mr. Gray “Ee correspondent has been good enough to shed light from a new angle upon a subject that is of perpetual interest to ‘A. A.”’ readers: San Francisco. I have noticed in ‘Ask Adventure” a number of queries from readers whether a boat one hundred feet long was large enough to make a voyage through the tropics and other similar questions. For their information I will state that there is in Golden Gate Park, San Francisco, a boat presented to the city by the Norse colony here. The inscription states that it is the Gjoa. It was built in 1872. The length is 70 feet, the beam 20 feet, and the registered tonnage 47. I call attention to this because it was the boat selected by Captain Roald Amundsen for his Arctic explorations. He sailed on June 16, 1903, spent two years in King William’s Land and in 1905 made the Northwest Passage—the only time it has ever been done—and arrived in San Francisco in October, 1906. I think we are liable to be too much influenced in our judgment of what can be done in small boats by the sight of the enormous ships of today and to forget that most exploration has been done in boats of less, and often very much less, than hundred- footers.—A. GRAY. About Foxes Col Joseph’s coat of many colors have been made out of foxskins? Question: —“I would like a little information in regard to black or silver fox in your part of the coun- try. Any and all information you can give me in regard to them will be greatly appreciated.” —A. A. MANTHEY, Princeton, Wis. t Answer, by Mr. Catton:—The red fox: Length — over all up to thirty-five inches, of which the tail will be a full half; stands up to eighteen inches at the shoulders, this measurement being approximately Adventure For general information on U.S. and its possessions, write Supt. of Public Documents, Wash., D. C., for catalog of all Government publications. For the Philippines, Porto Rico, and customs receiverships in Santo Domingo and Haiti, the Bureau of Insular Affairs, War Dept., Wash., D. C. For Alaska, the Alaska Bureau, Chamber of Commerce, Central Bldg., Seattle, Wash. For Hawaii, Hawaii Promotion Committee, Chamber of Commerce, Honolulu, T, H. Also, Dept. of the Interior, Wash, D. C. For Cuba, Bureau of Information, Dept. of Agri., Com. and Labor, Havana, Cuba. The Pan-American Union may be called upon for general information relating to Latin-American matters_ or for specific data. Address L. S. Rowe, Dir. Gen., Wash., D. C. For R. C. M. P., Commissioner Royal Canadian Mounted Police, Ottawa, Can. Only unmarried British subjects, age 18 to 40, above 5 ft. 8 in. and under 175 lbs. yee Canal Zone, the Panama Canal Com., Wash., For U. S., its possessions and most foreign countries, the Dept. of Com., Wash., D. C his girth; and weighs from five to thirty-five pounds. His nose is sharp and pointed, as are his ears; tail bushy and heavily haired; four toes and dew-claw on each foot, the four toes armed with curved claws. They live in dens in the rocks, burrows in the sides of hills and under boulders, hollow logs, or any crack or crevice that is dry and warm and secluded. They are night feeders, hunting their food between night- down and sun-up, and sleep out in the sun in the day- time. They seldom travel farther than five miles from their dens, and their food consists of rabbits, groundhogs, rats and mice, partridges and other birds, and even frogs. They den up in pairs, male and female, only the aged or outlawed male being found separately. They mate once a year, during January or Febru- ary, the period of gestation being the same as the oo fifty days, and produce from one to six at a itter. Skin value, last year’s quotations, from fifty cents to twenty-five dollars. And that covers, too, the black and the silver fox, with two exceptions—color of fur and the value. For the red fox, the cross fox, the silver fox, and the black fox are but different color phases of the same animal. Silver, black, cross and red fox have been found in the same litters, whose parents were both reds. Nor has the reason for these different colors been found. Authorities have failed as yet, so far as I know, to get to the bottom of the question, though many theories have been advanced. That the red is the original color, and the others ‘‘sports’’ (tricks of nature, literally) is one theory; that the black is the original, from which the red evolved, and the present-day blacks throwbacks, is another; and a dozen other theories. But that’s all they are— merely theories as yet. The red fox is red, red running from almost a lemon color to nearly brown. The black fox is black, the softest, blackest black imaginable. The silver fox is black overlaid with nnged silver hairs. The cross-fox 1s almost anything not red or black. All have the same characteristic—the white tip at the extreme end of the tail. In value the black and silver foxes range from two thousand to four thousand dollars for their pelts, Go NOOLK 5} (Cc S (© in