MAMMALS OF PENNSYLVANIA AND NEW JERSEY. 1 49 



1894. Cant's mexicanus nubilus Rhoads, American Naturalist, vol. 28, p. 

 524. 



Type locality. — Vicinity of Council Bluffs, Pottawatamie Co., Iowa. 



Faunal distribution. — Nothing can be now defined as to the faunal rela- 

 tions of the North American gray wolves. The name above given was ap- 

 plied to a wolf nearer than any yet named, geographically and faunally, to 

 the eastern animal, but as it belongs to a prairie-haunting wolf it may not be 

 applicable to our timber wolf in a subspecitic sense. I adopt it as the most 

 tenable name for our wolf yet published, there seeming to be no old names 

 specially applicable to wolves found east of the Mississippi River and north 

 of Georgia. Perhaps occidcntalis of Richardson may be as applicable. 



Distribution in Pa. and N. y. — Wolves were once commonly and uni- 

 formly distributed over the entire limits of the two states. They were ap- 

 parently exterminated in Pa. within the last 10 or 15 years, but more recent 

 accounts seem to indicate that a remnant of the typical Alleghanian animal 

 may still exist in the mountains separating Westmoreland and Somerset Cos., 

 Pa. In N. J. they had been exterminated so early, even in the northern 

 wilds, that I can get no data as to the last survivors. They were approxi- 

 mately exterminated in N. J. in the early decades of the 19th century. As 

 one was killed in Wayne Co. in 1S87, being driven in from New York state 

 by dogs, it is quite likely that a stray wanderer may have come from the same 

 sources into the Sussex Co. mountains as late as the middle of the century, 

 from New York or Pa. 



Records in Fa. — General records. — " The following notes seem to indicate 

 that the wolf has never been wholly exterminated in Pennsylvania, but that 

 there yet exist some of these wary rovers of the wilderness, to attest the 

 theory that no country where the Virginia deer yet remain is free from their 

 incursions. It is well known that the wolf is frequently noted in the Alleghany 

 mountains of V/est Virginia, and the nature of the country lying between 

 these and the wilds of western Pennsylvania so favors communication between 

 the two that it requires no stretch of fancy to understand how the crafty wan- 

 derers yet defy extermination." — Rhoads, Proc. A. N. Sci., Phila., 1897, pp. 

 220, 221. "In view of the fact that for several years past the writer has 

 made especial efforts to verify the statement that this animal is still to be 

 found in Pennsylvania, and has failed, he is very much inclined to the 

 opinion that none of the species in a wild state are present in this Common- 

 wealth. It is true that bounty records in different counties of the state, as 

 late, perhaps, as six months since, show that wolf scalps have been paid for. 

 Such data, however, must not be taken as conclusive evidence of the presence 

 of these animals, for the heads and ears of grizzly, long-haired cur dogs, etc., 

 or the pelts of wolves brought to Pennsylvania from other states, have in past 

 years proven of considerable value to scalp hunters, although expensive to 

 the local taxpayers." — Warren, Poultry Book, 1896, p. 495. 



