12 THE COMMON WOLF. 



on the authority of Mr. Allen, that the wolf is found east of the 

 Mississippi and south of Canada only in the still nearly unsettled 

 parts of the country, as the northern portion of New England and New 

 York, portions of the Alleghanies, Southern Florida, and possibly in the 

 sparsely settled parts of the interior States south of the Ohio. It is only 

 abundant in the remote districts of Maine. West of the Mississippi its 

 numbers are very small in comparison with its former abundance, while 

 over vast areas it has been wholly extirpated. North of the United 

 States, except in the more settled parts of Canada, it is probably still 

 more or less common. 



Mr. S. F. Baird justly observes *, with respect to the unity or multi- 

 plicity of species of Wolf : " It is difficult to occupy a middle ground 

 between considering all our wolves as one species with many varieties, 

 or making all these varieties into as many distinct species. Thus, we 

 have the pure white wolf of the Upper Missouri ; the dusky blackish 

 plumbeous wolf of the Missouri ; the entirely black wolf of Florida and 

 the Southern States, and the entirely red or rufous wolf of Texas. 

 These vary, too, in shape as well as colour, the more southern ones 

 appearing usually more slender f, and standing higher on the legs, in 

 consequence, perhaps, of the comparative shortness and compactness 

 of the fur." The wolf descends so far south in Mexico as the State of 

 Guanajuato, but these southern wolves are greatly inferior in size to 

 the northern, and especially the subarctic forms j. 



We have examined a black wolf-skin from America, and a perfectly 

 white one also from America, not an albino, was seen at Liverpool a 

 short time ago by Mr. A. D. Bartlett. At the British Museum there 

 is a specimen brought from North America by Dr. Rae, which is most 

 remarkable on account of its long white hair, being an example of a 



* Loc. cit. p. 105. 



t This remark is interesting because the Southern Old- World form pallipes is 

 distinguished by its greater sleuderness from the wolves of northern parts of the 

 Palaearctic region. 



+ Alston, loc. cit. p. 66. 



