MAMMALS CANIDAE CANIS OCCIDENTALS. 



107 



the white atmulations on the long hairs. The ears, differing from any skins T have examined, 

 are chestnut colored, with blackish tips to some of the hairs, and the margins strongly tinged 

 with the same. The prevaling color of the muzzle and fore part of the head is black, with gray 

 and brown hairs intermixed. The hair on the margin of the lips is not conspicuously darker, 

 although there is a dusky shade in the chin and sides of the head, caused by occasional black 

 tipped hairs. The hairs on the throat, too, have black tips and annulations, but there is no 

 decidedly marked collar on the throat. There is a very conspicuous mark on the edge of the 

 fore leg, extending from the shoulders to the carpus. 



The skins of the wolves, as decribed above, all vary more or less, as will be seen from the 

 description. One is without the stripe on the leg ; the others exhibit it in a greater or less 

 degree. No. 1010 has some of the characteristics given by Townsend as belonging to his giant 

 wolf, though the size falls far short of his specimen. None have the black lower jaw, nor the 

 very appreciable color of the specimen referred to from Sonora, which may be the Canis nigri- 

 rostris of authors. 



Measurements. 



Very little reliance, however, is to be placed on the indications of measurements given above, 

 the skins being all more or less stretched or distorted. 



In examining a large number of skulls of wolves from various localities, I fail to find as yet 

 any decided indications of permanent specific distinction. In investigations into the cranial 

 characteristics of the Carnivora, the wolves especially, it must be borne in mind that the shape 

 of the head varies very much in the same individual with increasing age and more decided lon 

 gitudinal crest. Young wolves have the width of the head less than half its total length, 

 while the adult may give a proportion of 56 to 100 between the same measurements. In what 

 is incontestibly the same species, too, there may be two sizes of head with precisely the same 

 proportional development in other respects. This may be owing to sex or other causes. 



The broadest skulls before me are those of the white and the gray wolves of the Platte, 

 presented by Captain Van Vliet and Dr. W. Hammond. These, however, are also the oldest. 

 Thus, taking the length from the incisive alveoli to the back of the occipital condyle as 100 

 parts, the width between outside of zygomas varies from 61 in the oldest to 56 in the 

 youngest. Skulls of the same proportions otherwise vary in the width of the muzzle. The 

 following table well exhibits the measurements and proportions of a large number of wolves: 



