200 EXTINCT AND VANISHING MAMMALS 



the European wolf is the ancestor of the domestic dog, but the 

 evidence for this is merely inferential. Usually wolves of any 

 race may be distinguished from even the largest dogs by their 

 proportionally larger teeth, shorter ears, and less elevated 

 forehead due to the smaller development of the frontal sinuses. 

 In dogs the length of the lower first molar or carnassial tooth 

 is usually less (and in medium-sized and smaller breeds much 

 less) than 22 mm., whereas in wolves it is in excess of this 

 measurement. In their general proportions and a certain 

 "plumpness," however, the teeth of wolves are exceedingly 

 like those of domestic dogs and differ from the narrower more 

 bladelike teeth of coyotes, which some have thought ancestral 

 to dogs. 



Everywhere in North America that wolves have come into 

 competition with white men, in settlements or in agricultural 

 communities, they have been regarded as a common enemy 

 and killed whenever possible. The inevitable result has been 

 their greater or less reduction in the thinly settled regions and 

 complete extermination from larger areas where white popula- 

 tion is denser or agricultural and pastoral use of the land makes 

 it impossible to tolerate their presence on account of their 

 depredations against livestock. While this is more or less to be 

 deplored, it is unavoidable, for the rancher can not be expected 

 to view with complacency the resulting loss. The outlook for 

 the preservation of a remnant of this interesting species is 

 therefore bright only in the wilder and more inaccessible 

 regions or in large public reservations where the numbers can 

 be controlled and where, conceivably, a small number of 

 wolves might serve a useful purpose not only in preventing 

 too great an increase in wild deer or mountain sheep but also 

 in actually improving or keeping up a standard of quality by 

 eliminating sickly or stupid individuals. It is remarkable that 

 even in parts of Europe to this day as in Spain and France a 

 few wolves have remained in spite of long occupation by 

 white races. Furthermore, if one may believe the mass of 

 published accounts, wolves under the stress of hunger have 

 been known to pursue and kill human beings in Europe and 

 Asia, whereas at least in eastern North America there seem to 

 be few or no authentic cases of such bold actions on the part of 

 wolves here in early days, although there are instances of 

 wolves having followed and frightened many of our early 

 settlers. 



