THE WOLF. 



BY WILLIAM PITTMAN LETT. 



Hark to that minstrelsy, ringing and clear! 

 'Tis the chorus of death on the trail of the Deer! 

 The fierce forest Blood-hounds are gathering in might; 

 Their echoing yells wake the silence of night, 

 As relentless they stretch over mountain and plain, 

 The blood of their fast-speeding victim to drain. 

 They close he stands proudly one moment at bay; 

 'Tis his last they are on him to ravage and slay ! 



Wolf belongs to the genus Canis, or Canine 

 !>i family. According to Audubon and Bachman's 



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/jp/' "Quadrupeds of America," the Wolf has six inci- 

 sors in the upper and six in the lower jaw, one 

 canine tooth in each jaw, and six molars above and six 

 below. The three first teeth in the upper jaw and the four 

 in the lower jaw are trenchant and small, and are also 

 called false molars. The great carnivorous tooth above is 

 bicuspid, with a small tubercle on the inner side; that below 

 has the posterior lobe altogether tubercular. There are two 

 tuberculous teeth behind each of the great carnivorous 

 teeth. The muzzle of the Wolf is elongate; the tongue 

 soft; the ears erect, but sometimes pendulous in the domes- 

 tic varieties. The fore feet are pentadactylous, or five -toed; 

 the hind feet, tetradactylous, or four- toed; the teats are 

 both inguinal and ventral. 



The Gray Wolf of Canada i. e., the large Wolf .of all 

 Northern America is about five feet six inches in length, 

 from the point of the nose to extreme end of the tail; 

 ordinarily about twenty- six inches high at the shoulder, 

 larger ones, however, measuring twenty-eight inches in 

 height and weighing from seventy to one hundred pounds. 

 I give the latter measurement and height from the bodies 



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