96 ANIMAL LIFE OF CARLSBAD CAVERN 



yaps, and a kiyi-i-i-i-i-i-i-i-i, in fast falsetto tones. A 

 few bones were found back in the cavern a hundred 

 feet beyond the great western doorway, where they may 

 have been carried, or where some coyote cornered in 

 the entrance and forced to jump into the cave had died a 

 lonesome death. Poisons and traps have thinned them 

 out in this part of the valley, but Carl Livingston told 

 me that they were more numerous east of Carlsbad, 

 where on one large cattle ranch they were known to have 

 killed about twenty calves in the spring of 1924. 



The coyote is a small wolf, less than half the size of 

 the lobo, weighing about twenty-five or thirty pounds, 

 dark yellowish gray in color, and with rather large 

 ears. 



GRAY WOLF 



Canis mexicanus nubilus 



These big gray wolves, or lobos, were once numerous 

 in the Pecos Valley, and were still very destructive to 

 stock when I was there in 1901. Now they are practi- 

 cally gone, and the stockmen could give me no recent 

 record of their occurrence in the Carlsbad region. A 

 few may wander in from time to time from across the 

 Rio Grande or other areas where they have not been 

 systematically trapped. 



The large gray wolf or lobo of the Mexicans is a 

 heavy animal, often weighing over one hundred pounds, 

 with long, light gray fur, and a well marked cape or 

 mane of long hairs. 



