General Notes. 95 



THE NAMES OF TWO NORTH A.MERICAN WOLVES. 



The technical names now in use for two of the wolves occurring in 

 eastern North America arc clearly untenable. 



[n L761 * Buffon published an account of a melanistic.wolf brought 

 alive to Paris from Canada by a French naval officer. The plate repre- 

 senting this animal was copied by Schreber fifteen years later with the 

 addition of the name Canis lycaon.i Although the name lycaon has 

 been recently applied to the wolf <>t' the Pyrenees,! it must stand for the 

 animal occurring in eastern Canada and the northeastern United States. 

 'Phis form, as pointed out by Baird,§ differs from western ami northern 

 wolves in the weakness nf the rostral portion of the skull. 



In L829 Richardson described the melanistic phase of the wolf of .Mac- 

 kenzie and Saskatchewan as [Cams lupus, occidentalis] var. R. Lupus 

 at, i. He supposed that the same animal occurred throughout North 

 America, and at the end of his account he men tinned that : " it is reported 

 to he plentiful in Florida, when', according to Bartram, the females are 

 distinguished by a white spot on the breast."|l () n the strength of this 

 final statement Bangs restricted the name ater to the wolf of Florida. IT 

 Tin- course is obviously not in harmony with the spirit of the Inter- 

 national Code. Art. 30. There can be little if any doubt that a specific 

 name like a generic name must, under the code, he applied to an animal 

 known at first hand by the original author, when, as in the present case, 

 there is choice between such an animal and others known from literature 

 only. The Florida wolf is thus left without a technical name, since the 

 Canis lycaon P americana applied to it by Hamilton Smith in 1827** is 

 invalidated by the Canis alopex americanus of Kerr, 1791, ft and the 

 Canis familiaris u ainericanus of Gmelin, L788. + * It may he known as 

 Canis floridanus.§§ — Gerrit S. Milter, Jr. 



* Hist. Nat.. IX, pp. 362-370, pi. XI. r. 

 Baugthiere, pi. LXXXIX (only vernacular name used in text, III. p. 353), 1776. 

 Droi -art. Faune Ma mm. d 'Europe, p. 90, 1910. 

 § Mamm. North A.mer'., p. 108, 1857. 



Fauna Boreali-Americana, pp. 70-72, 1829. 

 ' Proc. Boston Soc. Nat. lli.-t.. XXVIII, p. 233, March. 1898. 

 "Griffith's Cuvier, Animal Kingdom, Y, p. in. 



[lima! Kingdom, p. 1 12. 

 tt sysi. Nat., 13th ed., I. p. 69. 



% Type adult female (skin and skull) No. U. S. National Museum, Horse 



Landing, St. Johns River, Florida, August 12, 1890, presented i>.\ Dr. \v. I.. Ralph, 

 light buffygraj Painty clouded with black on upperparts; muzzle, legs 

 and feel with strong ochraceous wash, skull and teeth much as in Canis lycaon. but 

 premolars larger and upper carnassial less robust; condylobasal length a I if tut 216 mm., 

 zygoma ; i'- breadth 121 .") mm. 



