753 



CANIS. 



CANIS. 



751 



and although it is said that until the young can see, the female care- 

 fully hides them from the male, for fear he should devour them, it is 

 certain that he hunts for them and brings them food, consisting for 

 the most part of the smaller quadrupeds, partridges, moor-game, &c., 

 after they have the use of their eyes, and that both parents take their 

 offspring out to teach them to hunt as soon as they are strong 

 enough. 



The Common Wolf (Oanii Lupia). 



Several varieties or species of Wolf are met with in Asia. The 

 Landgah, or Indian Wolf, is the Canit pattipet of Sykes, and the Sac- 

 caliui Indicut of Hodgson. It is an inhabitant of Nepaul. 



The wolves of Asia Minor are fulvous, but the colour is more pre- 

 dominant and has more red in it than that of the Italian wolves. 



Of the Indian wolves, one, the Beriah, is described as being of a 

 light fox-colour inclining to dun, not larger than a grayhound, slen- 

 derly made, but bony ; the head and ears long, like those of a Jackal, 

 and the tail long, but not very hairy; the other, which is smaller, 

 Colonel Smith refers to his Lyciscan group. The last-named zoologist 

 refers the black Derboun of the mountains of Arabia and the south of 

 Syria to the Wolf. 



The wolf, or the lupine forms of the genus Canit, are found in 

 America. Sir John Richardson, in the ' Fauna Boreali-Americana,' 

 observes that the Common Wolves of the Old and New World have 

 been generally supposed to be the same species the Canit Lupin 

 of Linnaeus. The American naturalists have indeed, he remarks, 

 described some of the northern kinds of wolf as distinct ; but it 

 never seems to have been doubted that a wolf possessing all the 

 characters of the European Wolf exists within the limits of the 

 United States. He then goes on to point out that the wolf to which 

 these characters have been ascribed seems to be the Large Brown Wolf 

 of Lewis and Clark ; and, according to them, it inhabits not only the 

 Atlantic countries, but also the borders of the Pacific and the moun- 

 tains which approach the Columbia River, between the great falls and 

 rapids, out is not found on the Missouri to the westward of the Platte. 

 Richardson remarks that he had seen none of these Brown Wolves. 



In the ' New Description of Virginia' (1649) wolves are mentioned 

 among the beasts found there ; and Lawson notices the Wolf of Caro- 

 lina and thus describes him : " The Wolf of Carolina is the dog of 

 the woods. The Indians had no other curs before the Christians 

 came amongst them. They are made domestic. When wild they 

 are neither so large nor fierce as the European Wolf. They are not 

 man-slayers, neither is any creature in Carolina unless wounded. 

 They go in great droves in the night to hunt deer, which they do as 

 well as the best pack of hounds : nay, one of these will hunt down 

 a deer. They are often so poor that they can hardly run. When 

 they catch no prey they go to a swamp, and fill their belly full of mud ; 

 if afterwards they chance to get anything of flesh, they will disgorge 

 the mud and eat the other. When they hunt in the night, and there 

 ia a great many together, they make the most hideous and frightful 

 noise that ever was heard. The fur makes good muffs. The skin, 

 dressed to a parchment, makes the best drum-heads, and if tanned 

 makes the best sort of shoes for the summer-countries." 



Catesby says : " The wolves in America are like those of Europe 

 in shape and colour, but are somewhat smaller. They are more timor- 

 ous, and not so voracious as those of Europe. A drove of them will 

 fly from a single man, yet in very severe weather there have been some 

 instances to the contrary. Wolves were domestic with the Indians, 

 who had no other dogs before those of Europe were introduced, since 

 which the breed of wolves and European dogs are mixed and become 

 prolific. It is remarkable that the European dogs that have no mixture 



HAT. HIST. DIV. VOL. I. 



of wolfish blood have an antipathy to those that have, and worry them 

 whenever they meet. The wolf-breed act only defensively, and, with 

 his tail between his legs, endeavours to evade the other's fury. The 

 wolves in Carolina are very numerous, and more destructive than any 

 other animal. They go in droves by night, and hunt deer like hounds, 

 with dismal yelling cries." 



Sir John Richardson gives a minute description of the Cams Lupus 

 occidentalis, American Wolf, the Missouri Wolf of Lewis and Clark, 

 and states that he does not mean to assert that the differences existing 

 between it and its European congener are sufficiently permanent to 

 constitute them, in the eye of the naturalist, distinct species. The 

 same kind of differences, he observes, may be traced between the 

 foxes and native races of the domestic dog of the New World and 

 those of the Old ; the former possessing finer, denser, and longer fur, 

 and broader feet, well calculated for running on the snow. These 

 remarks were elicited by a comparison of living specimens of American 

 and Pyrenean wolves ; but he had not an opportunity of ascertaining 

 whether the Lapland and Siberian wolves, inhabiting a similar climate 

 with those of America, had similar peculiarities of form, or whether 

 they differed in physiognomy from the wolf of the south of Europe. 

 He therefore considered it unadvisable to designate the northern wolf 

 of America by a distinct specific appellation, lest he should unneces- 

 sarily add to the list of synonyms. The word occidentalis, which is 

 affixed to the Linnxan name of Cams Lupus, is, he tells us, to be 

 considered as merely marking the geographical position of that 

 peculiar race of Wolf. 



Thii animal is very common throughout the northern regions of 

 America, but more or less abundant in different districts. " Their 

 foot-marks," says Richardson, "may be seen by the side of every 

 stream, and a traveller can rarely pass a night in these wilds without 

 hearing them howling around him. They are very numerous on the 

 sandy plains which, lying to the eastward of the Rocky Mountains, 

 extend from the sources of the Peace and Saskatchewan rivers 

 towards the Missouri. There bands of them hang on the skirts of 

 the buffalo (bison) herds, and prey upon the sick and straggling calves. 

 They do not, under ordinary circumstances, venture to attack the 

 full-grown animal ; for the hunters informed me that they often see 

 wolves walking through a herd of bulls without exciting the least 

 alarm ; and the marksmen, when they crawl towards a buffalo for the 

 purpose of shooting it, occasionally wear a cap with two ears, in imi- 

 tation of the head of a wolf, knowing from experience that they will 

 be suffered to approach nearer in that guise. On the Barren-Grounds 

 through which the Coppermine River flows I had more than once an 

 opportunity of seeing a single wolf in close pursuit of a rein-deer ; 

 and I witnessed a chace on Point Lake when covered with ice, which 

 terminated in a fine buck rein-deer being overtaken by a large white 

 wolf, and disabled by a bite in the flank. An Indian, who was con- 

 cealed on the borders of the lake, ran in and cut the deer's throat with 

 his knife, the wolf at once relinquished his prey and sneaked off. In 

 the chase the poor deer urged its flight by great bounds, which for a 

 time exceeded the speed of the wolf; but it stopped so frequently to 

 gaze on its relentless enemy, that the latter, toiling on at a ' long 

 gallop ' with its tongue lolling out of its mouth, gradually came up. 

 After each hasty look the poor deer redoubled its efforts to escape ; 

 but, either exhausted by fatigue or enervated by fear, it became, just 

 before it was overtaken, scarcely able to keep its feet." 



The same author observes that the wolves destroy many foxes, 

 which they easily run down if they perceive them on a plain at any 

 distance from their hiding-places ; and he relates that in January 1827 

 a wolf was seen to catch an Arctic Fox within sight of Fort Franklin, 

 and although immediately pursued by hunters on snow-shoes, it bore 

 off its prey in its mouth without any apparent diminution of its speed. 

 The same wolf, he adds, continued for some days to prowl in the 

 vicinity of the fort, and even stole fish from a sledge which two dogs 

 were accustomed to draw home from the nets without a driver. As 

 this kind of depredation could not be allowed to go on, the wolf was 

 waylaid and killed. It proved to be a female, which accounted for 

 the sledge-dogs not having been molested. He further states that the 

 buffalo-hunters would be unable to preserve the game they kill from 

 the wolves if the latter were not as fearful as they are rapacious. The 

 simple precaution of tying a handkerchief to a branch, or of blowing 

 up a bladder and hanging it so as to wave in the wind, is sufficient to 

 keep herds of wolves at a distance. At times, however, he says that 

 they are impelled by hunger to be more venturous, and that they have 

 been known to steal provisions from under a man's head in the night, 

 and to come into a traveller's bivouac and carry off some of his dogs. 

 " During our residence at Cumberland House in 1820," continues Sir 

 John, " a wolf, which had been prowling round the fort, and was 

 wounded by a musket-ball and driven off, returned after it became 

 dark, whilst the blood was still flowing from its wound, and carried 

 off a dog from amongst fifty others, that howled piteously, but had 

 not courage to unite in an attack on their enemy. I was told of a poor 

 Indian woman who was strangled by a wolf, while her husband, who 

 saw the attack, was hastening to her assistance ; but this was the only 

 instance of their attacking human life that came to my knowledge. 

 As the winter advances and the snow becomes deep, the wolves, being 

 no longer able to hunt with success, suffer from hunger, and in severe 

 seasons many die. In the spring of 1826 a large gray wolf was driven 



3 c 



