MUSEUM OF COMPARATIVE ZOOLOGY. 1-j7 



Wolf." On the Missouri we find, according to Lewis and Clark, that the 

 wolves arc chiefly yellow, as also, according to Professor Baird, on the Platte 

 and Yellowstone (X. Am. Mam., p. 110), where they appear to gradually 

 merge into the gray and white ones of the north. These latter evidently 

 form the so-called varying wolf (('. variabilis) of Prince Maximilian,* 

 some of which, he says, are entirely white, others yellowish white, some 

 more mixed with gray, and others still entirely gray, in the same pack. 

 The black wolf noted by Say on the Missouri, and which he de& 

 as C. nubilus, like the gray and white ones, seems to occur every- 

 where, but apparently much more abundantly at the south, thus cor- 

 responding in its distribution, as in general character, with the black 

 variety of Southern Europe, described by Linnams, and afterwards by 

 Cuvier, as Canis lycaon. This name was also applied by Ur. Harlan to 

 the American black wolf. The red, or rufous, seems likewise southern, oc- 

 curring in great abundance in Texas, and thence northward through the 

 middle region of the continent, passing gradually through paler rufous and 

 yellowish to the prevalent gray and grayish-white wolves of the north. 

 Though perhaps our data are at present too few to warrant positive con- 

 clusions on the subject, the facts appear to point rather strongly to a local- 

 ization of these different colors ; it is nevertheless true that, as already 

 stated, the wolves present at every locality a wide range of variation, and 

 that neither variety of color is entirely restricted to any particular region. 

 The gray is apparently the most widely diffused, occurring in greater or 

 less numbers almost everywhere, f We find, however, that authors have 

 considered these color differences as indicating not only permanent va- 

 rieties, worthy of distinctive names, but even species, as is shown by 

 a glance at the subjoined table of synonymes of the American animal. 

 Not a few, including Audubon, Bachman, Dr. Richardson, and others, have 

 been so inconsistent as to name and characterize as "varieties" what they 

 at the same time admit to be either positively or probably only individual 

 variations, occurring sometimes in the same litter with the common form, i 



* Keise in das innere Nord-Amerika, Vol. II, 1841, p. 95. lb., Arcliiv fur Natur- 

 geschichte, Vol. XXVII, 1561, p. 247. 



t Dr. Cones observes, in a series of interesting papers on the " Quadrupeds of Ari- 

 zona," in the American Naturalist (Vol. I, p. 2SS), that all the wolves seen by him 

 in Arizona were of the grizzly or grayish-white variety, which in winter, at a distance, 

 appear almost white. 



t Dr. Richardson, after saying " these variations of color, however, not being attended 

 witli any differences of form, nor peculiarities of habit, I deem them to be no more char- 

 acteristics of proper species, or even jiermanent varieties, than color would be in the do- 

 mestic dog," proceeds at once to formally name and describe five "varieties," as though 

 the}- were tangible, permanent forms, — so great apparently is the fascination to some 

 minds of bestowing nam3S, to be followed by their own as authority, in Natural History. 



