Coyote 419 



along the middle of the back ; ears with short pencil ot black hairs ; upper 

 surface of ear black with small triangular spots of dark grey ; tail above 

 dull cinnamon, somewhat mixed with black, below white, tip black ; 

 under-parts dull white spotted with black ; a pectoral collar of cinnamon ; 

 under surface of feet black." 



THE COYOTE, OR PRAIRIE WOLF 



(^Canis hi trans) 



(Plate VIII. Fig. ii) 



The lithe and slender type of wolf inhabiting western North America 

 from the plains ot the Saskatchewan to the southern extremity of the 

 Mexican table-land, and from the prairies of the Mississippi to the Pacific 

 sea-coast, was recognised as a distinct species by Say ^ in 1823, and named 

 Canis latrans. Some years later (1839) it was made the type of a distinct 

 genus — Lyciscus — by Major Hamilton Smith in Sir William Jardine's 

 Naturalist's Library^ but zoologists have now reverted to the original 

 nomenclature. Although a few of its local representatives have from time 

 to time received distinct names, till recent years it has been very generally 

 believed that there was but a single form of coyote. In 1897 Dr. C. H. 

 Merriam '^ was, however, enabled to show that no less than eleven modifi- 

 cations of the coyote type were recognisable. These modifications he 

 regarded as distinct species, remarking that " the name coyote has not been 

 applied to a single animal, but to an assemblage of species comprising three 

 well-marked subordinate groups and a considerable number of distinct 

 geographic forms." He adds that " the results of this and similar studies 

 should serve as a word ot caution to those who are in the habit of citing the 



^ In Long's Expedition to the Rocky Mountains, vol. i. p. i68. 

 '^ Proceedings Biological Society of Washington, vol. xi. p. 19. 



