NORTH AMERICA AND THE WEST INDIES 231 



it is found mainly on the western side of the river in south- 

 eastern Missouri, Arkansas, southeastern Oklahoma, eastern 

 Texas, and Louisiana. It grades into the typical form in Texas 

 and apparently into the eastern race floridanus in northern 

 Alabama. Arthur (1931) publishes a photograph of a captive 

 Louisiana individual which was black and shows the relatively 

 long coyotelike ears. He says that it is found in the prairie 

 and marsh sections of Louisiana, preying on rabbits, native 

 rats and mice, squirrels, ground-nesting birds, and fawns, as 

 well as on domestic calves, sheep, and hogs. The young are 

 born in January and February and number from three to a 

 dozen to a litter, averaging about half a dozen, so that the rate 

 of increase may be fairly rapid. "While the wolf has been 

 persistently hunted by man in Louisiana ... it appears 

 to be on the increase, and, slowly but surely, extending its 

 range in the state ... In La Salle parish . . . the 

 wolves have become very obnoxious because of their depreda- 

 tions on live stock, and cattle men in West Feliciana parish now 

 fear an increase of their number as the cattle and sheep raising 

 business in this former cottonraising territory is growing in im- 

 portance . . . It is not unlikely, therefore, that in a few 

 years stringent and systematic campaigns against wolves in 

 this state will have to be planned. " Similar reports of increased 

 numbers are credited by Bellinger and Black (1940), who 

 write that " wolves are becoming rather common in the Ozarks " 

 with records of several, including two black wolves, taken in 

 late years in the northwestern and western part of Arkansas. 

 Stanley P. Young (1940) finds that in eastern Texas the red 

 wolf is abundant; more than 800 were caught during the pre- 

 vious year (1939) on account of livestock depredations. He 

 believes that on account of its habit of living in thickets it will 

 not easily be exterminated. 



The Florida wolf is now regarded as a race of the red rather 

 than of the gray wolf, from which it differs presumably in much 

 the same characters as does C. rufus gregoryi, but it has ap- 

 parently a much stouter skull and dentition. Black was the 

 usual color, but no doubt a mixed phase also occurred. At the 

 present time this wolf is probably extinct in Florida, as well as 

 in southern Georgia, which formerly perhaps marked its north- 

 ward range. Dr. Francis Harper (1927) has reviewed its status 

 in the region of the Okefenokee Swamp, where the last one actu- 



