152 THE BLACK WOLF. 



now the lobo will accompany strings of mules as 

 soon as it becomes dusky. They are seen bounding 

 from bush to bush by the side of travellers, and 

 keeping parallel with them as they proceed, waiting 

 an opportunity to select a victim ; and often suc- 

 ceeding, unless the muleteers can reach some place 

 of safety before dark, and have no dangerous passes 

 to traverse. Black wolves occur again in the moun- 

 tains of Friuli and about Cattaro. 



The Vekvoturian mountain- wolf of Russia is ano- 

 ther race of the black species. From the females, 

 crossed by domestic dogs, a hybrid progeny has 

 been obtained at Moscow, which, according to Pal- 

 las, resembled wolves, but carried the tail higher 

 and had a hoarse barking. " They multiply," says 

 that celebrated naturalist, " among themselves, and 

 some of the whelps are greyish, rusty, and even 

 white, like the wolves of the arctic circle. One of 

 those I saw, in shape, tail, fur, and voice, was so 

 like a cur, that, was it not for his head and ears, his 

 ill-natured look and fearfulness at the approach of 

 man, I should have hardly believed that it was of 

 the same breed."* 



The Bossmrtak of the Lenas, in Siberia, is another 

 canine of a shining black colour, probably of the 

 same species as the former, but with a more valu- 

 able fur. 



The Derboun of the mountains of Arabia and the 

 south of Syria is the last black canine we can refer 

 to the wolf. Little is known concerning this ani- 



* Pallas, in Pennant's Arctic Zoology, vol. i. p. 42. 



