The natural black fox is a member of the silver fox family and is very rare, the skins bringing a high price.
Where the best coloured skins are not used for carriage rugs they are extensively dyed, and badger and other white hairs are inserted to resemble silver fox.
In Paris, too, they obtain beautiful results in the "topping" or colouring Russian sables and the Germans are particularly successful in dyeing Persian lambs black and foxes in all blue, grey, black and smoke colours and in the insertion of white hairs in imitation of the real silver fox.
The red fox is widely distributed, and the white or Arctic fox is very common along the eastern coast of Bering Sea; a blue fox, once wild, is now domesticated on Kodiak and the Aleutians, and on the southern continental coast, and a black fox, very rare, occurs in south-eastern Alaska; the silver fox is very rare.
The walrus, hunted for its ivory tusks, and the sea otter, rarest and most valuable of Alaskan fur animals, are near extermination; the blue fox is now bred for its pelt on the Aleutians and the southern continental coast; the skins of the black and silver fox are extremely rare, and in general the whole fur industry is discouragingly decadent.
