210 EXTINCT AND VANISHING MAMMALS 



Mackenzie." It is similar to the race C. I. fuscus of the coast 

 districts to the south, but a larger percentage of black or 

 blackish individuals is normal, while it is less suffused with 

 buffy in the gray phase. The small auditory bullae distinguish 

 it from the race crassodon of Vancouver Island, while its longer 

 rostrum and palate and the longer narrower nasals separate it 

 from fuscus. None of these characteristics seems very trench- 

 ant, taken alone, but Goldman considers it a "well-marked 

 form," closest related to the last. 



Swarth (1936), commenting on the distribution of this wolf, 

 says that it is "found upon the same islands as the Red Squirrel 

 [i. e., Mitkof, Kupreanof, and Kuiu], and also upon the large 

 Prince of Wales and Dall Islands with some others of this 

 southern group that the squirrel has never reached. Evidently 

 the wolf did not come directly from the north" but reached 

 those of the inner islands that formed a series of stepping- 

 stones most easily crossed from the adjacent southeastern 

 coast. I have no recent information concerning its present 

 status, but apparently it still occurs on these islands in small 

 numbers. 



EASTERN .TIMBER WOLF 



CANIS LUPUS LYCAON Schreber 



Canis lycaon Schreber, Saugthiere, vol. 3, p. 353, pi. 89, 1776 ("Vicinity of Quebec, 



Canada," as selected by Goldman, 1937, p. 37). 

 FIGS.: Stone and Cram, 1902, pi. opposite p. 278; Nelson, 1916, p. 423, upper figs. 



(color phases). 



The eastern timber wolf is slightly smaller than the wolf of 

 northern Labrador, and usually of a grizzled black, white, and 

 gray. As long ago pointed out by Baird, it differs from the 

 Plains wolf and the neighboring northern races in its weaker 

 rostrum. Weight upwards of 100 pounds. 



Three hundred years ago this wolf ranged over the wooded 

 and open areas of eastern North America from southern Que- 

 bec to probably the southern States and westward to the 

 Plains. With the coming of white men and the occupation of 

 the country, it has been gradually extirpated from the settled 

 regions until at the present time wolves are gone from practi- 

 cally all the eastern United States and probably none are now 

 to be found south of the St. Lawrence and east of Michigan. 



When the first English colonists landed on the shores of New 

 England they found wolves plentiful and troublesome and were 



