NORTH AMERICA AND THE WEST INDIES 



scription of Greenland" in 1745 mentions them as a thing of 

 the past. Hence it was a notable circumstance that in the 

 winter of 1868-69 one was killed near Unamak and is now 

 mounted in the Museum at Copenhagen. It was one of a pair 

 seen together, but where they could have come from is diffi- 

 cult to tell. At the present time the wolf population of north- 

 eastern Greenland must be limited, and whether there is oc- 

 casional immigration from Ellesmere Land over the ice is also 

 uncertain. The slight basis on which orion was described 

 makes necessary a further comparison between wolves of the 

 two areas when a sufficient number of skulls can be assembled. 



ALASKAN WOLF; "AUTOCRAT TIMBER WOLF" 

 CANIS LUPUS PAMBASILEUS Elliot 



Canis pambasileus Elliot, Proc. Biol. Soc. Washington, vol. 18, p. 79, Feb. 21, 1905 

 ("Sushitna River, region of Mt. McKinley, Alaska"). 



Skull and teeth larger than in the neighboring races; "ridge 

 of sagittal and occipital crest nearly on a level with frontal and 

 with only a very slight descent at occiput and very deep at 

 that point; maxillae very b?oad . . . premaxillae ex- 

 tending considerably over one-half the length of the nasals 

 Color from nearly uniform black to white and black in 

 various mixtures. " The total length of the type skull is 263 

 mm.; length of carnassial tooth, 27. 



Elliot describes these wolves from the upper waters of the 

 Sushitna River in the region of Mount McKinley as "remark- 

 able for their large size and black color." He believes their 

 skull characters are distinctive, and Goldman in his paper of 

 1937 lists this as a valid race, without attempting to define its 

 range. Evidently, however, it is larger than the race ligoni of 

 the Alexander Archipelago and somewhere intergrades to the 

 south with the northern Plains wolf, C. I. occidentalis. Its very 

 dark color is in contrast with the usual paleness of the latter. 



The late Charles Sheldon (1930) has left a vivid account of 

 his hunting experiences during a year spent in the "Wilderness 

 of Denali" (the Indian name for Mount McKinley). He saw 

 little of these wolves, though on nine occasions he found in the 

 snow the tracks of wolves that had attempted to catch moun- 

 tain sheep by dashing upon them from above from a distance 

 of a hundred yards or so. In each case the wolf was unsuccess- 



