CANID^ 213 



Family Canidae (Dog-s, Wolves, Foxes.) 

 Dig-itigrade ; front feet with five toes, the inner toe small 

 and placed some distance above the others; hind feet with four 

 toes; claws not retractile; tail long, usually bushy; tongue nor- 

 mal; rostrum very long; palate not extending much back of mol- 

 ars ; teeth usually 42. 



This is a large family of nearly a dozen genera, probaI)iy 

 seventy-five living and several extinct species. The family is very 

 generally distributed over the world, including Australia. All are 

 carnivorous, some species exclusively so, but many species eat 

 other food such as fruits. 



Genus Canis Linn. (Dog.) 

 Pupil of eye circular; tail moderately bushy; upi>er incisors 

 with a distinct lobe each side of the main point ; incisors of mod- 

 erate size; front cusp of upper sectorial tooth obsolete; first upper 

 molar very large and the second one rather large, each with two 

 prominent outer aisps and a lower tubercular shelf supported on 

 an inner root; lower sectorial tooth (first molar) very large; 

 last lower molar and first lower premolar very small; temporal 

 crests united in one saggital crest ; postorbital processes small ; 

 angular process of lower jaw long, curved, distinct. 



Dental formula, I, 3 — 3; C, i — i ; P, 4 — 4; M, 2 — 3'X2=42. 



Canis ochropus Eschscholtz. (Ochre — foot.) 



VALLEY COYOTE. 



Above buffy ochraceous mixed with black; below whitish 

 more or less tinged with buff and with the long hairs of throat 

 and breast more or less tipped with black; ears whitish on the 

 inside and tawny or tawny ochraceous on convex surface; nose 

 grayish cinnamon; legs dull tawny ochraceous, paler or whitish 

 on the inside and grizzled with black tipped hairs on the outside 

 next the body ; tail, above like the body, Ijelow dull tawny ochra- 

 ceous whitish at base and darkening toward the tip which is 



