Gray-wolf 787 



Wolf-hunters sometimes throw a marrow bone in the fire 

 at sundown; this smoulders all night and makes an attractive 

 smell that the Wolves can detect and are drawn by, though 

 miles away. 



When seized by the trap a Wolf bounds off with all his 

 strength. If the trap be held solid, something is likely to break 

 under the violence of the struggle, but fastened to a drag, which 

 yields to each jerk, the Wolf is securely held. His efforts 

 merely tire him out, and he is usually found in the nearest 

 cover or hollow within a few hundred yards of the bait. 



As to the humanity of setting out such devices for catching 

 wild animals there is little to be said. Nevertheless, it is not 

 so much injury of the steel as the days of struggling and starva- 

 tion that have caused the chief suffering, and this every trapper 

 aims to avoid by going at very short intervals to the traps. 

 As a rule, the less the animal has suffered the better the pelt. 

 The ranchman puts the matter briefly: We do not trap and 

 poison for fun, but because the Wolves would soon ruin every 

 man in the cattle business if we did not keep them down. 

 And we kill that way because there is no other way of doing it. 



Since the above was written, Vernon Bailey, of the United 

 States Biological Survey, has shed unexpected light on the 

 Wolf question. He proves by actual experiment that, since 

 the young Wolves are born in March, when the snow is on the 

 ground, it is easy to track the parents home and exterminate 

 the family. An energetic repetition of the process soon rids 

 a region of Wolves. The details of his method are published 

 in Bulletin 72, Forest Service, United States Department of 

 Agriculture, 1906. 



The skin of the Gray-wolf is split open flat like that of a fur 

 Beaver, while Coyote skins are cased like Fox and Mink. The 

 fur is rich, full, and beautiful. It makes a fine robe, but is not 

 very durable as a rug. It is prime from November 15 to 

 April 15, and brings from $1.00 to ^10.00, according to quality. 



At the London annual fur sales held at Lampson's, 

 March, igo6, there were 15,843 Wolfskins disposed of. The 



