GRAY WOLVES AND COYOTES 233 



old ones. The most effectual method is by 

 searching out and destroying the dens and pups, 

 of which six to ten are usually born in a litter 

 to a pair of gray wolves. These are produced 

 early in spring in some rocky niche or cave or 

 sheltered hollow in the open country, and in a 

 hollow log or stump when the region is forested. 

 Both parents continue in company, caring for 

 the young, until the latter are well-grown. 



Character of the coyote. The smaller-red- 

 dish prairie-wolves or coyotes (coy-yo-teh) are 

 far more widespread, numerous and annoying, 

 though rarely dangerous ; and if farming oper- 

 ations, with their attending domestic animals 

 and poultry, are to be carried on in the plains 

 country or mountain valleys of the West ; and if 

 sheep-farming is ever to be made productive 

 there, these keen and pertinacious little wolves 

 must be subdued. At the same time it must 

 not be forgotten that they perform a most 

 excellent service by killing a vast number of 

 noxious mice, gophers, prairie-dogs, rabbits 

 and other pests. If it were possible, then, to 

 keep the coyote as a harmless ranger of the 

 plains, a sort of Cossack that freed the fron- 



