NORTH AMERICA AND THE WEST INDIES 201 



Like other large carnivores, wolves require food in larger 

 amounts, so that in addition to what smaller game they may 

 pick up, it is the larger ungulates that they specially hunt. 

 In the North the caribou, and on the plains the mule deer, and 

 even the young or sickly bison were objects of pursuit, while in 

 the wooded regions of eastern North America the white-tailed 

 deer was a staple food species. In the case of the last-named 

 the wolf in areas of deep winter snows was doubtless a main 

 factor in preventing the spread of this deer to the northward 

 into regions where now it is abundant. 



In recent years a more intensive campaign has been carried 

 on under the U. S. Biological Survey to eliminate the wolf 

 entirely from stock-raising regions of the West. This has 

 resulted in the accumulation by the Survey of sufficient speci- 

 mens to "afford a fairly satisfactory basis for determining 

 specific and subspecific relationships" of the American races, 

 as worked out in Goldman's (1937) paper. Some of these are 

 already extinct, others nearly so. In the following brief survey, 

 the races are taken up alphabetically, giving a condensed 

 statement of the general status so far as at present known. A 

 final account of the genus and its natural history is to be 

 desired. 



In a general way, the various races of wolves are much alike, 

 about the size of a modern "police dog" but shaggier, with 

 short ears and bushy tail, carried usually with a slight hump 

 near the root. The usual color is a mixed black, white, and 

 gray, giving a grizzled appearance. The long hairs of the coat 

 are usually white for the greater part of their length, with 

 more or less black tipping or white, producing this mixed 

 appearance. Often the white portion of the hairs is greater 

 than the black tipping, resulting in a pale coat, and in the 

 Arctic parts of the range the black may be eliminated almost 

 altogether, so that the pelage is white. On the other hand, 

 black may predominate and the pelage in that case is blackish 

 to entirely black. This wide variation may occur within the 

 same family group of animals, so that color characters are 

 often of little avail for the separation of geographic races. 

 These are therefore in large part based on cranial characters 

 and on size differences where they are significant. While 

 wolves must often travel over considerable areas in their 

 hunting, and thus tend to segregate less than more sedentary 



