202 EXTINCT AND VANISHING MAMMALS 



species, they must nevertheless keep to more or less definite 

 regions where under varying conditions of environment slight 

 differences have developed. Intergradation through individual 

 variation often makes the exact definition of races difficult, and 

 series are needed in working out the status of animals from 

 different parts of the range. 



According to a useful pamphlet by Vernon Bailey (1907) 

 wolves enter very little into the national forests of the western 

 United States but favor foothill regions for breeding and 

 hunting. In some areas there is evidence of a certain amount of 

 seasonal migration, in the course of which the wolves of a dis- 

 trict follow the cattle herds into the mountains in spring, and 

 again in autumn accompany them into lowland areas, much as 

 in former times they followed the bison. The same paper has 

 some account of the abundance of wolves in the West and 

 South up to the early years of this century, with instructions 

 for trapping and poisoning. 



AMERICAN ARCTIC WOLF 



CANIS LUPUS ARCTOS Pocock 



Canis lupus arctos Pocock, Proc. Zool. Soc. London, 1935, p. 682, Sept. 12 ("Melville 



Island, Arctic America"). 

 FIG.: Nelson, 1916, p. 421. 



According to Pocock the skull of a specimen of Arctic wolf 

 from Melville Island "may be distinguished at a glance by the 

 great elevation of the frontal region and the resulting much 

 more strongly convex curvature of the frontorostral line. It is 

 also broader . . . in the muzzle and palate . . . The 

 bulla also is noticeably more inflated" as compared with a 

 skull regarded as representing C. I. tundrarum. This is a 

 white wolf. 



In addition to the skull of the type from Melville Island, 

 Pocock lists a second in the British Museum from Discovery 

 Bay, Ellesmere Land. The former was secured in 1853-54, the 

 second about 1878. Parry seems to have been the first to men- 

 tion this wolf, which he noticed was smaller than the white 

 wolf of the mainland (tundrarum) . 



The present status of this wolf in Ellesmere Land and ad- 

 joining islands to the west is uncertain. There are few human 

 inhabitants, either Eskimo or white. However, since it would 



