400 EXTINCT AND VANISHING MAMMALS 



enclosed area was driven. As the circle became smaller, the 

 lines of Indians would become deepened by the addition of 

 their number on the outer edge of the line, to prevent animals 

 from breaking through. When the enclosed animals were 

 finally penned, the carnivores were all killed, but of the deer, 

 vicunas, or other such game, only a certain number of males 

 and old females were slain, the others freed. Tschudi had seen 

 similar drives in his time, but on a smaller scale, and agrees 

 that the number of bears thus captured or killed stands in very 

 small proportion to the number of other large carnivores, so 

 that their apparent scarcity is probably an actual one. He 

 doubts if the bear that served for Cuvier's description and 

 figure really came from the Chilean Cordillera but suggests 

 that the only likely harbor on the west coast of South America 

 from which such an animal might be shipped was Truxillo. 

 In distinguishing his supposed new species, "frugilegus," from 

 ornatus, Tschudi stresses the reports that while the latter 

 preys upon young deer, vicunas, and huanacos, the former is 

 chiefly a vegetarian and often does much damage in plundering 

 the maize fields of the natives. The available evidence does not 

 indicate that this bear is much of a predator but finds abun- 

 dant food in the way of fruits', leaves, or roots. 



Family CANIDAE: Wolves, Dogs, Foxes 



ANTARCTIC WOLF; FALKLAND Fox 



DUSICYON AUSTRALIS (Kerr) 



Canis vulpes australis Kerr, Linnaeus's Animal Kingdom, p. 144, 1792 (West Falkland 



Island; see Osgood, Journ. Mamm., vol. 1, p. 35, 1919). 

 SYNONYMS: Canis antarcticus Bechstein, Uebers. Vierfiiss. Thiere Pennant, vol. 1, p. 



271, footnote, 1799; Dusicyon antarcticus Thomas, Ann. Mag. Nat. Hist., ser. 8, 



vol. 13, p. 353, 1914. 

 FIGS.: Mivart, 1890, pi. 8 (col.); Pocock, 1913, figs. 70B, 71 A, 73, 74B, D (skull and 



teeth). 



The Falkland Island fox, although often called a wolf, is not 

 a wolf at all and is not even closely related to the North 

 American coyotes, as Huxley formerly supposed. Instead it 

 is a near relative of the group of South American foxes, which 

 are now regarded as distinguishable under the generic title 

 Dusicyon. How this animal reached the Falkland Islands 

 will doubtless ever remain a matter for speculation. 



