NORTH AMERICA AND THE WEST INDIES 207 



Five specimens are mentioned by Hall in his original descrip- 

 tion of this wolf. Concerning the status of the race, Swarth 

 (1912) writes that a quarter of a century ago wolves were still 

 fairly common "in the wilder parts of at least the northern 

 two-thirds of Vancouver Island, sufficiently so as to be a serious 

 menace to the deer in many places." At Beaver Creek he 

 heard one howl and was told that they were occasionally seen 

 in the valley during the winter but very seldom in summer. 

 At Nootka they were said to be abundant. "On the Tahsis 

 Canal we stayed at the camp of a trapper who made it his 

 principal occupation during the winter to hunt wolves and 

 panthers." With the bounty of $15 a head added to the value 

 of the fur, the trapper evidently secured enough to make it pay. 

 This trapper used poison exclusively and seemed to have had 

 no trouble in killing the animals, but in several years' hunting 

 he had actually seen but two or three alive, so cunning are they 

 in keeping out of sight. Swarth stated that wolves had been 

 so common at Friendly Cove during the years immediately 

 preceding 1912 that deer had been almost completely driven 

 out of the neighborhood. Of the status of this wolf at the 

 present day no further information is at hand. 



NORTHWEST COAST WOLF; "BROWN WOLF" 

 CANIS LUPUS FUSCUS Richardson 



Canis lupus var. fusca Richardson, Zool. Beechey's Voyage of the Blossom, Mammals, 

 p. 5, 1839 ("California and the Banks of the Columbia River"). 



SYNONYM: Lupus gigas Townsend, Journ. Acad. Nat. ScS., Philadelphia, ser. 1, vol. 2, 

 p. 75, Nov., 1850 (near Vancouver, Columbia River, Washington). 



The wolf formerly occurring from northern California to the 

 Puget Sound region, and probably southwestern British 

 Columbia west of the Cascades, was regarded as a valid form 

 by Miller (1912) in notes on the names of the large wolves of 

 North America. He states that a skull from the Puget Sound 

 region "indicates an animal differing from the timber- wolf of 

 the interior region in less great size and in less enlarged teeth." 

 Hall (1932) contrasts specimens from Oregon with the race 

 crassodon of Vancouver Island and says that they differ 

 noticeably in "the markedly less inflated tympanic bullae, 

 much smaller teeth," in the more convex lower profile of the 

 jaw and other minor skull characters. The color is "much 

 darker" than in the Plains wolf (Bailey). 



