fox

The common or red fox is versatile and intelligent. It is a skilful hunter, preying on rodents, hares, birds, and insects. In urban areas, the red fox is a scavenger of dustbins.

The Arctic fox Alopex lagopus has white fur in the winter for camouflage against the snow, and a grey-brown coat in the summer. To reduce heat loss its ears are shorter and more furry than those of other foxes.

One of the smaller species of wild dog of the family Canidae, which live in Africa, Asia, Europe, North America, and South America. Foxes feed on a wide range of animals from worms to rabbits, scavenge for food, and also eat berries. They are very adaptable, maintaining high populations close to urban areas.

Most foxes are nocturnal, and make an underground den, or ‘earth’. The common or red fox Vulpes vulpes is about 60 cm/2 ft long plus a tail (‘brush’) 40 cm/1.3 ft long. The fur is reddish with black patches behind the ears and a light tip to the tail. Other foxes include the Arctic fox Alopex lagopus, the fennec, the grey foxes genus Urocyon of North and Central America, and the South American genus Dusicyon, to which the extinct Falkland Islands dog belonged.

3.4 million foxes are killed for their skins annually worldwide.

Fox

Member of an American Indian people who lived near Saginaw Bay, Michigan, until pushed into Wisconsin in the mid-17th century. They speak an Algonquian dialect, and are closely allied to the Sac. Fur-trading rivalries with other Great Lakes peoples and the French drove them into Iowa in 1634. They maintained permanent villages and subsisted primarily on farming, supplemented by autumn buffalo hunts. Religious practice centred on the Midewiwin, or ‘Grand Medicine Society’. Most Fox now live in Oklahoma as part of the Sac and Fox Nation or on land owned in Iowa. Income is raised from farming and industry.

The Fox call themselves Meshkwakikaki, the ‘Red Earth People’, but the French named them after one of their clans. They cultivated maize (corn), beans, and squash, and hunted buffalo on the prairies. Civil affairs were administered by a hereditary chief and a council of elders, while separate war and ceremonial chiefs were chosen on merit when the need arose. Families were grouped into patrilineal clans (membership passing through the father's line). Once a year the Midewiwin, or ‘Grand Medicine Society’, a secret religious organization common to many Great Lakes peoples, held a major ceremony to gain spiritual aid for their people. The rituals revolved around sacred medicine bundles (collections of magical objects). The Fox still use the Fox language at home and have retained their traditional community, clan, and ceremonial organizations, and although they live in frame houses, traditional tepees are built for ceremonies. The Native American Church, which takes the hallucinogenic peyote cactus, used in traditional sacred medical ritual, as a sacrament, has a strong following. Although closely allied to the Sac, they have always maintained separate traditions and chiefs.

An oral tradition describes how the Fox migrated from the Atlantic coast along the St Lawrence Seaway. By 1600 they were living in lower Michigan to the south and west of Saginaw Bay near their allies the Sac, and in the 1640s they were driven south into Wisconsin. The Fox befriended the Iroquois League, bringing them into conflict with most of the Great Lakes peoples. In the late 1720s the French began a campaign to exterminate the Fox for interfering in the fur trade, and almost succeeded in 1730. The surviving Fox allied themselves with the Sac of Green Bay, Wisconsin, and migrated into northeast Iowa to live along the upper Mississippi. In 1804 the Fox ceded all their lands on both sides of the Mississippi. They fought with the English in the War of 1812 against the USA, and in 1832 took part in the Black Hawk War, led by the Sac chief Black Hawk who refused to recognize the cessation of territory to the US government by a minority of Sac chiefs.

In 1849 the Fox ceded their lands in Iowa for a reserve in Kansas, which they shared with the Sac until major disagreements erupted. Some joined the Kickapoo and migrated to New Mexico, while others purchased land in Tama County, Iowa. Most of the remaining Fox and Sac relocated to Oklahoma in 1869, leaving behind a small group known as the Missouri Band. In 1891 their reservation lands in Oklahoma were individually allotted, releasing a large portion for white settlement. By the end of the 20th century they held less than 400 ha/1,000 acres.

The Fox are the only federally-recognized American Indian group living in Iowa. Their official name is the Sac and Fox of the Mississippi, but they prefer to be known as the Mesquaki. They do not live on a reservation but on about 200,000 ha/500,000 acres of land that is owned and managed through an elected business council. The Sac and Fox of the Missouri continue to live in Kansas and Nebraska.

Fox

River in southeast Wisconsin and northeast Illinois; length 225 km/139 mi. Rising in Washington County, it flows in a southerly direction through Waukesha and Fox Lake, then on to Elgin and Aurora, before turning southwest to meet the Illinois River at Ottawa, Illinois. It flows though an important manufacturing and agricultural region.

Fox

River in Wisconsin; length 285 km/177 mi. It rises in the lake area to the north of Madison and is connected by the Portage Canal with the Wisconsin River; it continues northeast to Lake Winnebago at Oshkosh and beyond this to Green Bay. In its lower course it provides water for an important industrial area specializing in papermaking.