154: BULLETIN OF THE 



CANID^I. 



3. Canis lupus Linn. (C. occidentalis var. griseo-albus Baird.) 

 Gray "Wolf. Occasional in the sparsely populated districts of the west- 

 ern counties. Like the species of FeUdce, it has been nearly extirpated. 



Authorities have differed greatly in their views respecting the identity of 

 the American and European wolves ; some, forming the majority, and 

 among them apparently those whose opportunities for judging have been 

 most favorable, have considered them the same, while others, and among 

 them many who seem to have but casually examined the subject, have re- 

 garded them as distinct. Not only so, but — omitting certain varieties based 

 on color and commonly received as merely nominal, though repeatedly 

 raised to the rank of species — specimens from the middle and western por- 

 tions of the continent have been described as specifically distinct, both 

 from the Old World wolves and those of the eastern side of the continent.* 

 Dr. Richardson, than whom probably no one has had Letter opportunities 

 for studying American wolves, after pointing out some trivial differences in 

 physiognomy and in the character of the pelage between the wolves of 

 Arctic America and the Pyrenees, observes : " Notwithstanding the above 

 enumeration of the peculiarities of the American wolf, I do not mean to 

 assert that the differences existing between it and its European congener 

 are sufficiently permanent to constitute them, in the eye of the naturalist, 

 distinct species. The same kind of differences may be traced between the 

 foxes and native races of the domestic dog of the New World and those of 

 the Old ; the former possessing finer, denser, and longer fur, and broader 

 feet, well calculated tor running on the snow, f These remarks have been 

 elicited by a comparison of live specimens of American and Pyrenean 

 wolves ; but I have not had an opportunity of ascertaining whether the 

 Lapland and Siberian wolves, inhabiting a similar climate with the Ameri- 

 can ones, have similar peculiarities of form, or whether they differ in physi- 

 ognomy from the wolf of the south of Europe." For this reason he con. 

 sidered it " unadvisable to designate the northern wolf of America by a 

 distinct specific appellation"; '• the word occidentalis" {Canis lupus occi- 

 dentalism, he further observe-, " which I have affixed to the Linnscan name 

 of Canis lupus, is to be considered as merely marking the geographical po- 

 sition of the peculiar race of wolf which forms the subject of this article." 



Audubon and Bachman, the former having been long familiar with the 

 American wolf in all its different varieties, unhesitatingly pronounced, after 



' As C. nubilus Say, C- vwidbilis Maximilian, C. gigas Townsend, &c. 

 t The comparisons in this case, it should be remembered, are between specimens from 

 lely differing 



