This is a question we can attempt to answer. But do not expect a short answer!
c. 1200 looks more like a Mountain Fox but harking back to the post on pictorial evidence of Old fox types in Western Europe this is from Konrad Kyeser, Bellifortis, Germany 15th century. Besançon, Bibliothèque municipale, ms. 1360, fol. 78v (c)2023 British Fox Study
Below 1830s Colquhoun Mountain fox (possibly killed in spring/early summer -a very accurate illustration -the photo can be found in The Red Paper (c)2023 British Fox Study
These foxes were fast and diets similar to other foxes unsurprisingly. However, the modern myth of lamb/sheep stealing foxes probably began with Mountain foxes that were big and strong enough to take the dwarf like sheep bred in the North of England and Scotland at one. point. Known also for rearing (but not exclusively) "stubble born" young -ie outside of dens and in fields.
The fox illustrated had probably lost its winter coat and is likely one of the last generation of mountain foxes -the illustration makes it look as though it has black "socks" but this was to show darker brown as there is no black in the actual fox,
Below another Colquhoun 'trophy' and it is likely to be the mastiff/hill fox based on its build and long legs -these foxes were slightly smaller than the Mountain fox (c)2023 British Fox Study
Below is the sketch from Col. Talbot's book to show what a Mountain/Greyhound fox looked like (c)2023 British Fox Study
Foxes At Home, 1906 Col. J S Talbot:
"A splendid specimen of the vulpine tribe is the greyhound fox, the largest and stoutest member of his race, long, limber, and grey -a wolf on a small scale - the brush not quite so bushy as that of the ordinary fox, and with, as a rule, only a few straggling white hairs at the tip, his grizzly mask, when obtained, being a trophy of which any huntsman may well be proud."
Compared Talbot's sketch with the photo below of a Norwegian "Mountain fox" as the source describes it.
(c)2023 respective copyright holder
To this we can add the rare red fox subspecies thriving in Beartooth range - In the drainages, plateaus and enclaves of the Beartooth Mountains, a relic of two ice ages ago is thriving despite being isolated for hundreds of thousands of years. The Rocky Mountain subspecies of the red fox is a success story in survival despite rarely receiving the benefits of conservation efforts.
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The Beartooth Mountain fox (c)respective copyright owner
See my post here
My colleague, LM, always trying to outdo me by discovering something first -😁- sent me this photograph of what they envision a Mountain fox looked like...
Eastern coyote from Pennsylvania some years ago hunting mice . Look at the similarities to Algonquin Wolves.www.wilddog.org and you might be wondering why this would interest us? As noted it is how we might expect a mountain fox to look in a winter coat although it is an assumption made but with a different colouration in mind. It was LM who spotted that older foxes had a sort of "mottle" pattern to the fur.
The other reason why this photo is interesting is that, as detailed in The Red Paper Canids, wolves, coyotes and jackals were released into the countryside by hunts and as early as possibly the 18th century -the reports are confirmed in press as well as journal reports and hunting books of the 19th century and the best known are the Epping Forest 'wolves' that were actually coyotes and certainly not accidental releases as claimed. This led to some speculation in certain quarters that the Mountain fox might actually be early released coyotes. However, as the foxes were known pre-colonisation of North America this is highly unlikely and even the old blunderheads involved in hunting might have identified the fox for a coyote since they did not just go on 'sporting holidays' to Europe to hunt wolves and jackals but also visited the United States to hunt wolves and coyotes (coyotes even being laid on (bagged) for hunts).
The other suggestion was that the Mountain foxes might have been the larger than European North American Red Foxes (NARF). Well there is no actual evidence of this in the masks ands taxidermies though the NARF trait is shown in certain wild foxes in the UK today. Did the Vikings transport NARFs in trade ships? The likelihood is no. Furs, yes. Perhaps smoked and preserved fox meat for the journey home but the problems of having to secure, feed and so on might be too problematical. Also, there were Irish, Welsh and other travellers to the Americas before the Vikings and I can find no references to any of these transporting live large mammals that would have had to be fed vital food supplies.
The anecdotal evidence that the Mountain fox was an Old British fox type with a lot of traits that you might find in coyotes and wolves is strong. Illustrations from Europe in our data base show that the Old West European foxes were similar if not the same type as the British fox. Whether Europe had similar to the mastiff/hill fox and Cur fox is open to question as that would require a lot of research going back as far as possible in old hunting books and the language barrier is the problem (and I am not getting any younger).
Our best guess is that the roving mountain fox had a similar lifestyle to a coyote or jackal and that its size meant that it could take slightly bigger prey than say the mastiff or cur foxes could and in harsh winters the small sheep in the valleys were an extra source of food although it must be noted that this is conjecture.
An old trick by game keepers or locals who took a chicken or two was to plant feathers or a piece of the bird they had stolen -this was allowed by the hunt master as there was some small compensation paid and prior to hunting foxes were protected and if a good job was not done on protecting them jobs were lost. A lamb stolen from a field could be blamed on foxes by using the same method -bits of wool and a small bone by a den.
I am reminded that in the 1800s fox hunters actually put up a sizeable reward for anyone who could prove t5hat a fox carried off a lamb let alone a sheep. They ridiculed the very idea because the weight of sheep and size of foxes -even the mountain fox could not carry off a full grown sheep and dead lambs were left (leading to many dog problems as detailed in The Red Paper). A good sized reward that had still not been claimed by the 1930s.
As I have noted on this blog as well as in published work; each of the Old British foxes had adapted to their particular environment -the mountain/greyhound obviously took to hills and mountains as well as swamps and forests so diet would have been quite varied. It's appearance showed that it was built for harsher living conditions. The Hill/Mastiff fox stuck to the hills but as more hares were wiped out through hunting what may have been a main prey item vanished and rabbits were good substitutes until harsh winters forced them into lower valleys and sheep dying would be a good food source. The Common or Cur fox was similar to foxes of today and lived near to human habitation and although taking the odd bird might have outraged someone a lot of thefts were blamed on them. There are accounts of cur foxes living in barn walls and even one with a den in a farm yard within yards of free roaming chicks -on every occasion the chickens were bypassed in favour of going out and hunting the main prey of any fox type: rabbits. It is a quite fair statement to say that fox feeders these days help foxes consume more chicken than they ever did/do in the wild.
We need far more in the way of pre 1870s fox taxidermy to assess and categorise the three types of foxes from before the 1860s extinction period. Unless we can find journals or diaries from pre 1870 that document the Old foxes and their habits it is all guesswork but based on facts we do know. We assume that all three fox types were of the vulpes species but just adapted to their environments. DNA could, of course, determine this but unless testing time can be donated or Elon Musk wants to throw a few thousand dollars into the work......
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