548 CARN1VORA 



Huxley 1 has based his division of the group into two parallel series, 

 the Thooids or Lupine forms and Alopecoids or Vulpine forms, 

 which he characterises by the presence of frontal air-sinuses in the 

 former, Avhich not only affect the external contour but to a still greater 

 degree the shape of the anterior part of the cranial cavity, and the 

 absence of such sinuses in the latter. The pupil of the eye when 

 contracted is round in most members of the first group, and vertic- 

 ally elliptical in the others, but more observations are required 

 before this character can be absolutely relied upon. The form and 

 length of the tail is often used for the purposes of classification, 

 but its characters do not coincide with those of the cranium, since 

 many of the South American Canidce have the long bushy tails of 

 Foxes and the skulls of Wolves. Taking into account various 

 combinations of these and other minor characters, the species may 

 be arranged in the following groups, which some authors have 

 considered as of generic importance. 



A. TJwoid or Lupine Series. The typical group, or Canis proper, 

 contains the largest members of the genus, the true Wolves of the 

 northern parts of both Old and New Worlds (C. lupus, etc.), the 

 Jackals of Southern Asia and Africa (C. aureus, mesomelas, etc.), and 

 the various breeds of the domestic Dog (C. familiaris). The true 

 Wolves are (excluding some varieties of the domestic Dog) the 

 largest members of the genus, and have a wide geographical range, 

 extending over nearly the whole of Europe and Asia, and North 

 America from Greenland to Mexico, but they are not found in 

 South America or Africa, being replaced in both of these continents 

 by various species of Jackals and Foxes. As might be expected 

 from this extensive range, and the varied character of the climatic 

 conditions of the countries they inhabit, they present great diversi- 

 ties of size, length and thickness of fur, and coloration, although 

 resembling each other in all important structural characters. These 

 differences have given rise to a supposed multiplicity of species, 

 expressed by the names of C. lupus, C. lycaon (Central Europe), 

 C. laniger and C. niger (Tibet), C. pallipes (India), C. occidentalis, 

 C. nubUis, C. mexicanus, etc., of North America, but it is very doubt- 

 ful whether some of these ought to be distinguished as other than 

 local varieties. Mr. W. T. Blanford, in his recent work on the 

 mammals of India, regards the two forms from Tibet mentioned 

 above as inseparable from C. lupus. In North America there is 

 a very distinct smaller species, called the Coyote or Prairie Wolf 

 (C. latrans) ; and perhaps the Japanese Wolf (C. Iwdophylax) may also 

 be distinct, although, except for its smaller size and shorter legs, it 

 is scarcely distinguishable from the common species. Though 

 generally distributed throughout the Indian peninsula, the Indian 

 1 Proc. Zool. Soc. Land., 1880, p. 238. See also Mivart, Dogs, Jackals, Wolves, 

 and Foxes; a Monograph of the Canidce (1890). 



