LOVERS OF THE CHASE AND OTHERS 69 



The under-fur is slate-grey in colour, and this is not found in the 

 animals which inhabit more southerly regions. It is rufous or 

 yellowish-grey above, underneath it is whitish, and the tail 

 frequently has a tip of black. 



Mr. Ernest Ingersoll, in his Life of Mammals, gives a delightful 

 account of this animal, in which he says that "as the Summer closes 

 and the whelps grow, the parents take them out with them and show 

 them what is good to eat and how to hunt for it. With the onset 

 of Winter times become harde^ the small creatures disappear, and 

 then the Wolves must arouse their strength and intelligence to 

 outwit and overcome the larger animals— the Wild Cattle, Deer, 

 Antelopes and the like upon which they prey. 



"The peaceable disposition of Summer changes as the snow fills 

 the forests, the cold gales moan through the trees, and the long, 

 dark nights enshroud an almost dead world, into hungry ferocity and 

 a force of craft and caution born of the direst need, breeding a daring 

 which at last makes the animal formidable to man himself. . . . 

 In is in Winter, mainly, when the larger animals must be depended 

 upon, that the Wolves form themselves into ' packs ' and assist one 

 another. To this class of animals hunting is truly ' the chase,' for 

 their method is, having found their quarry (in which the good nose 

 for a trail and the keen hearing assist them), to keep it in sight and 

 run it down. 



"The endurance of their gallop is astonishing, yet most Deer, 

 Antelopes and Horses can outspeed and outswim them, and would 

 usually escape a single Wolf. Therefore, two, or sometimes many, 

 unite, and by relieving one another, cutting across corners, sur- 

 rounding a pond in which some fleeing victim has sought safety, 

 or otherwise acting in concert, will exhaust and pull down an animal 

 large enough to furnish a meal for all — if the later ones are not too 

 slow in arriving ! A band of Arctic Wolves will depopulate a 

 district of Reindeer in one Winter; only the Polar Bear and the 

 Musk Ox can hold their own against them. . . . Dwellers on the 

 frontier, or in thinly settled and mountainous districts, suffer much 

 from the depredations of the bigger Wolves, which maim more than 

 they kill and eat, when famine, or the lesson learned from some 

 previous success, leads them to attack domestic animals. . . . This 

 destructiveness, and the value of their pelts, have led to their exter- 

 mination throughout the more thickly settled parts of both the 

 United States and Canada, and even in the Far West they have 



