SOME ONE HAD BLUNDERED.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 932, 10 January 1890, Page 28

SOME ONE HAD BLUNDERED.

Quite a surprise came upon the Customs authorities in. Auckland upon the arrival of the R.M.S. Zealandia

from San Francisco, for among her cargo were 24 foxes all alive and kicking, consigned to the New Zealand Government. The officials thinking that foxes were “vermin” within the meaning of the Jaw, wired to Sir James Hector to know what they were to do. Sir James replied stating that they had been sent contrary to instructions, and so they were not allowed to land, but were sent on to Sydney to give our Australian cousins a rare treat. It is evident that someone has blundered over the affair, and some explanation is required. In California there are several varieties of foxes. One is the grey fox (vulpes cinereo-argentatus), common to all parts of the United States. Another is the silver or black fox (V. argentatus). Then there are met with the long tailed and the large red or prairie fox, which is one of the largest of the fox family. No doubt fox-hunting would be a sport much enjoyed by people in this Colony, but as there is so much “cover,” from which it would be impossible to drive out the animals, they would soon increase in such numbers as to be a dangerous nuisance. We must protest against foxes ever being introduced into this Colony. In a flat open country where they can be hunted down, the danger is not so great, but here, where they would multiply in a rabbit-fashion, there would soon be a terrible outcry from our country settlers as to the loss of ducks, geese and fowls, to say nothing of the probable extinction of our pheasants and quail. The Californian foxes, bred in a semi-broken country, are as a rule more voracious than the European fox (vulpes vulgaris) bred in England, and hence would be a greater nuisance.