Mammal Study 



2 55 



THE WOLF 



I HE study of the wolf should precede the lessons 

 on the fox and the dog. After becoming 

 familiar with the habits of wolves, the pupils 

 will be much better able to understand the 

 nature of the dog and its life as a wild animal. 

 In most localities, the study of the wolf must, 

 of course, be a matter of reading, unless the 

 pupils have an opportunity to study the 

 animal in traveling manageries or in zoo- 

 logical gardens. However, in all the gov- 

 ernment preserves, the timber wolf has 

 multiplied to such an extent, that it may 



become a factor in the lives of many people in the United States. This 

 wolf ranged in packs over New York State a hundred years ago, but 

 was finally practically exterminated in most of the eastern forests, except 

 in remote and mountainous localities. A glance at Bulletin 72 by 

 Vernon Bailey, published by the U. S. Department of Agriculture, 

 Forest Service, is a revelation of the success of the timber wolf, in 

 coming back to his own, as soon as the forest preserves furnished 

 plenty of game, and forbade hunters. Timber wolves are returning of 

 late years to Western Maine and Northern New Hampshire; Northern 

 Michigan and Wisconsin have them in greater numbers; some have also 

 been killed in the Apalachian Mountains of Tennessee, Virginia and West 

 Virginia, but their stronghold is in the great Rocky Mountain Region and 

 the Northwestern Sierras, from which they have never been driven. 

 It mi^ht be well to begin this lesson on the wolf with a talk about the 



o o 



gray wolves which 

 our ancestors had to 

 contend with, and 

 also with stories of 

 the coyote or prairie 

 wolf w h i c h has 

 learned to adapt 

 itself to civilization 

 and flourishes in the 

 regions west of the 

 Rocky Mountains, 

 despite men and 

 dogs. Literature is 

 rich in wolf stories. 

 Although Kipling's 

 famous M o w g 1 i 

 Stories belong t o 

 the realm of fiction, 

 yet they contain 

 interesting accounts 

 of the habits of the 

 wolves of India, and 

 are based upon the 

 hunter's and track- 



Gray Wolf 



