NORTH AMERICA AND THE WEST INDIES 229 



Colorado. Such constant persecution is gradually reducing the 

 wolf population in all this region. 



Whether this form of wolf originally occurred in the extreme 

 eastern parts of California may never be known. Grinnell, 

 Dixon, and Linsdale (1937) report the wolf as having been 

 practically exterminated from California for many years. No 

 specimen of wolf from the State had been preserved in any 

 museum up to 1922, while the two since taken on the eastern 

 border these authors identify as "clearly of the plains wolf 

 type" referring them to the race nubilus. 



RED WOLF 

 CANIS RTJFUS RUFUS Audubon and Bachman 



Canis lupus var. rufus Audubon and Bachman, Quadrupeds of North America, vol. 2, 



p. 240, 1851 (Texas; fixed as 15 miles west of Austin). 

 FIG.: Audubon and Bachman, 1851, pi. 82. 



FLORIDA WOLF 



CANIS RUFUS FLORIDANUS Miller 



1 

 Canis floridanus Miller, Proc. Biol. Soc. Washington, vol. 25, p. 95, May 4, 1912 



("Horse Landing, St. Johns River, Florida"). 



SYNONYMS: Canis lycaon $ americana Hamilton Smith, Griffith's Cuvier, Anim. King- 

 dom, vol. 5, p. 144, 1827 (not Canis alopex americanus Kerr, 1795) ; Canis ater 

 Richardson, Fauna Bor.-Amer., pp. 70-72, 1829 (in part). 



MISSISSIPPI VALLEY WOLF 

 CANIS RUFUS GREGORYI Goldman 



Canis rufus gregoryi Goldman, Journ. Mamm., vol. 18, p. 44, Feb., 1937 ("Macks 

 Bayou, 3 miles east of Tensas River, 18 miles southwest of Tallulah, Madison 

 County, Louisiana"). 



FIG.: Arthur, 1931, fig., p. 147 (photograph of captive animal). 



In his review of the American wolves, Goldman (1937) states 

 that the red wolf, Canis rufns, "usually regarded as a wolf 

 . . . , exhibits a departure from the true wolves, and in 

 cranial and dental characters approaches the coyotes." He 

 therefore gives it full specific rank and relegates to it as sub- 

 species the Florida black wolf and the wolf of the lower Mis- 

 sissippi Valley which he describes as C. r. gregoryi. This course 

 may be tentatively accepted and the three treated together. 



The typical form of red wolf was slightly the smallest of the 



