THE WOLF 



(Cants lupus) 



THIS typical member of the Dog tribe so nearly related to our tame 

 Dogs that some naturalists consider it their ancestor, is a very widely 

 ranging beast, being found all round the Northern Hemisphere, though 

 it presents a great deal of local as well as individual variation in size, 

 coat, and strength of teeth. 



The Wolves in the illustration, sketched from a very fine Siberian 

 animal in the London Zoological Gardens at the time, are redder in tint 

 than many specimens, the more ordinary hue of a Wolf being a sort of 

 washed-out dun or yellowish-grey. Some black " ticking " on the upper 

 parts is always present, and entirely black Wolves occur in widely 

 separated localities. White ones may also be found, and the Wolf of 

 the high Arctic regions forms a white race. 



As with so many other widely ranging animals, the Wolf attains a 

 finer development in cold than in hot climates ; it is natural that he 

 should wear a thicker coat in the former, but his actual size is also greater. 

 The largest Wolves seem to be those of Alaska ; a huge black specimen 

 exhibited in the British Museum is bigger than any Dog. 



In the plains of India, on the other hand, the Wolf is a poor weedy 

 degenerate brute, about six inches shorter in length than the typical 

 Wolf, and with a close coat devoid of the usual woolly under-fur found 

 in Wolves. It is, indeed, usually ranked as a distinct species (Cant's 

 pallipes\ but all its peculiarities seem obviously due to what may be 

 called tropical degeneration. 



The ordinary length of a dog Wolf is about three and a half feet from 

 muzzle to root of tail, the bitch being somewhat smaller. The Wolf is 

 thus larger than most of our tame Dogs, and he is, indeed, the largest of 

 the members of the Dog family found wild. 



As he has been for ages the traditional enemy of man and his domestic 



