230 EXTINCT AND VANISHING MAMMALS 



three races and the most southwestern, with a range extending 

 from central Texas south west ward to the Mexican tableland. 

 In central Texas its range meets that of the Texas gray wolf, 

 Canis lupus monstrabilis, "but the two are not closely allied." 

 The latter has a much more massive and highly arched skull, 

 its dentition is simpler, the upper carnassial with a smaller 

 (often obsolete) anterointernal cusp, and the large upper molar 

 with less prominent cusp development on the internal lobe; 

 the posterior upper molars are relatively smaller than in rufus. 

 The color is reddish mixed with gray. 



Bailey, writing in 1905, believed that the ranges of the red 

 and the gray wolves, though contiguous, did not overlap, but 

 whether there is overlapping or intermingling future studies 

 will perhaps show. As a result of special attempts to secure 

 specimens of C. rufus from Texas, Bailey reported that at the 

 time mentioned there were 14 skulls and 4 skins in the U. S. 

 Biological Survey collection on the basis of which he outlined 

 the range as "the whole of southern Texas north to the mouth 

 of the Pecos and the mouth of the Colorado and still farther 

 north along the strip of mesquite country east of the plains, 

 approximately covering the semiarid part of the Lower Sonoran 

 zone." He mentions a specimen from Matamoras, Mexico. 

 In this area these wolves are destroyed by the ranchmen, since 

 they kill young cattle, goats, and colts. The result is that at 

 the present time this, the typical race, may now be extinct 

 (Goldman) . 



In Audubon's day "wolves" were common in Kentucky and 

 were usually black. They may or may not have represented a 

 race of the red wolf, but in his paper of 1937 Goldman definitely 

 names the wolf of the lower Mississippi region a race of it, 

 Canis rufus gregoryi. He characterizes it as a "large but slender 

 form of a small species . . . decidedly larger and grayer, 

 less tawny" than C. r. rufus, with a more slender skull and 

 lighter dentition than the Florida race. The middle and sides 

 of the face are mixed black and gray, changing to black and 

 cinnamon -buff on top of head ; upper parts from nape to rump 

 light buff, heavily mixed or overlain with black; outer surface 

 of legs between cinnamon and cinnamon-buff, paling on the 

 feet. Black individuals occasionally occur. 



Of this race, Goldman has examined over 150 individuals 

 from the lower part of the Mississippi Valley. He states that 



