MOST UNWELCOME MUSICIANS. 219 
link between the wolf proper and the fox. Its 
appearance, colour, form of head, and habit of 
hunting in packs, are all characters that ally it to 
the wolf; but true wolves, as far as I have been 
able to investigate their habits in North Western 
America, invariably have their young in caves, 
clefts in the rocks, or any place where digging is 
unnecessary; whereas the cayote has its young in 
burrows, precisely in the same way as foxes. 
The voice, too, is compounded of the howl or bay 
of the wolf, and the snappish oft repeated yap, 
yap, peculiar to the fox. 
Camping near the skirts of a forest on the 
Cascade mountains, in chilly autumn, when the 
days so far shortened make the evenings tediously 
long to one alone by the solitary camp-fire, I 
have lolled and listened to the gradual cessation 
of sounds, that, one by one slowly ceasing, are 
at last hushed without your being aware of it, 
dying off into perfect silence; as day with its 
blue sky fades into the purple twilight, and 
twilight leaves behind it a black vaulted expanse, 
gemmed with sparkling stars ; changes that have 
no apparent beginning or end. ‘Then amidst 
this darkness and silence the peculiar cry of the 
cayote bursts out as if close to your ear; ere | 
one ceases another commences, then another, and 
