Coyote 815 



In their vespers he also notes an interesting habit. Two 

 or three Coyotes will meet each night on a certain elevated 

 place to sing. They have several of these recognized choir- 

 lofts, but they never use the same on two nights in succession. 

 Sometimes on Turtle Mountain, in dead calm moonlit nights, 

 each Coyote gets up on his singing perch and pours out his 

 loudest and finest notes. This is passed on from one point to 

 another, till the whole mountain seems ringing with the weird 

 music, and, from its very wildness and the vast stretch of the 

 country that is concerned, the effect is truly impressive. 



In captive animals these simultaneous outbursts are often 

 observed. A favourite time is at noon, when the blowing of 

 whistles seems to be the immediate cause, or possibly only the 

 last touch that precipitates the event. 



This species readily crosses with the dog. S. L. Bedson hybrids 

 showed me a number of these hybrids at Stony Mountain, 

 Man., in 1885. They were intermediate in character and 

 continued to be interfertile with either stock, at least, for two 

 or more generations. 



I never, however, heard of a cross between a Coyote and 

 Gray-wolf, although the dog is as readily crossed with the 

 latter as with the former relative. 



Coyotes are kept down by poisoning, trapping, and killing 

 hunting. 



Poisoning, however, is now forbidden on account of the 

 number of dogs destroyed. 



Trapping is carried on as with Foxes, for the Coyote is 

 quite as cunning as its red-haired cousin. Not less than a No. 2 

 trap will do, and it must be fast to a drag of 20 or 30 pounds 

 weight, never staked solid. Trap, log, and all must be de- 

 odorized by smoking and rubbing with blood. They must be 

 carefully concealed in the soft ground and scraps of meat scat- 

 tered about, but not on, the trap. A lump of meat buried 

 under the trap is a sure attraction. The certainty with which 

 they dig out buried meat, leads me to believe that the Coyotes 



