NORTH AMERICA AND THE WEST INDIES 223 



and 1887, 193 skins. Dr. Francis Harper (1932) traversing 

 this region in 1914 noted seeing a number of skins and other 

 evidences of wolves. No doubt they will continue in the general 

 region in slowly decreasing numbers for a long time, though 

 annually trapped and poisoned. 



GREENLAND WOLF 



CANIS LUPUS ORION Pocock 



Canis lupus orion Pocock, Proc. Zool. Soc. London, 1935, p. 683, Sept. 12 ("Cape 



York, on Baffin Bay, Greenland"). 

 FIGS.: Manniche, 1910, figs. 18, 19 (animal), fig. 20 (skull) ; Jensen, 1928, p. 322, fig. 2 



(mounted specimen). 



The Greenland wolf is described as of "a uniform whitish 

 grey, except for the tolerably extensive marbling and streaking 

 of the black-tipped contour hairs of the upper side, but the 

 ears are pale buff, turning to drab towards the point; the top 

 of the head as far as the angle of the eye, and of the muzzle, 

 apart from its white tip, is very pale brownish grey . . 

 the tail has a black tip, but the rest of its upper side is not so 

 conspicuously black and white as the back." The skull is said 

 to be small and with smaller teeth than those of the races arctos 

 of Ellesmere Land or tundrarum of the Arctic coast of Canada. 

 "In the fore feet, the digital pads are greatly reduced in size 

 and there is no trace of the pollical or carpal pads. " 



Professor Jensen (1928) states that this wolf "has at the 

 present time the same distribution as the musk-ox, in that it 

 occurs on the north coast and the northern part of the east 

 coast, as far as the region round Scoresby Sound . . . 

 Even in the regions where the wolf now occurs, it is by no 

 means frequent; it is only found scattered and is comparatively 

 rarely seen. Before 1899, when Nathorst, on his expedition to 

 northern East Greenland, observed several polar wolves, this 

 animal had not been seen in those parts, although they had 

 been visited by various travellers; this caused Nathorst to set 

 forth the view that the wolf had only quite recently immigrated 

 to the east coast from the north. " The caribou or reindeer on 

 which these wolves must have preyed are now gone from the 

 east coast, but the muskox still remains in small numbers, and 

 presumably furnishes a major part of the wolfs sustenance. 

 Manniche (1910) could find no evidence that the Arctic hare 



