70 CASSELL'S POPULAR NATURAL HISTORY. 



Ihr country people driving the game towards tlic iiniiiiifiiiii, where (lie sportsmen, armed with rillcs, 

 were placed in amlmsli. ( >ue came bounding upwards towards the narrator, so large, that he took 

 it, while driving through the high grass and bushes, for a dusky wolf. The slight noise of cocking his 

 ritle was, however, sufficient to warn the animal, for it turned off out of sight. At the close of the 

 limit, seven were found slain, and their weight was so considerable, that lie, though in the prime 

 and vigour of life, could not quite lift one of them from the ground. 



In former times, the Spain -ill wolves congregated in the passes of the Pyrenees in large troops. 

 At a recent period, they have accompanied strings of mules as soon as evening was approaching. They 

 have been seen bounding from bush to bush, by the side of travellers, and keeping parallel with them 

 as tho'y advanced, waiting an opportunity to select a victim. Often, too, have they succeeded safety 

 only being secured by the muleteers reaching some secure place before dark, or having no dangerous 

 passes to traverse. 



THE DUSKY WOLF.* 



OF a grayish-black, partially tinged with brown, this animal has been observed to the north of the 

 < 'anadas. It is the counterpart of the Russian variety, which has a great quantity of long, coarse hair 

 on the checks, gullet, and neck. 



THE WOLF OF THE SOUTH AMERICAN STATES.t 



Ix stature, equal to the common wolf, this creature has a broader head; the ears are long and 

 pointed ; the neck very thick; the tail scanty, and not so long as in the former; the fur is gray, with 

 spots of a rusty tan-colour; the gray of the head is marked with several transverse blackish bars, and 

 on the forehead with fulvous spots; the neck is gray, with a fulvous bar, and a similarly coloured spot 

 on the breast, and another on the chest; blackish bars and fulvous spots run irregularly down 

 the sides; the tail is gray, with a fulvous mark about the middle ; the limbs are gray, with blackish 

 rings from the body to the feet, distinguishing this species from all other wolves. 



Such, then, is the first section formed by Colonel Smith. In his second section, Lycisms, or, as he 

 terms it, the group of Lyciscan dogs, he places the North American wolf and the caygotte of Mexico. 



Sir John Richardson, in the " Fauna Bo real i Americana," observes that the common wolves of the 

 Old and New World have been generally supposed to be the same species the Canis Lupus of Linnaeus. 

 "The American naturalists have, indeed," he remarks, "described some of the northern kinds of wolf 

 as distinct; but it never seems to have been doubted that a wolf, possessing all the characters of the 

 European wolf, exists within the limits of the United States." He then proceeds to show that, the 

 wolf to which these characters have been ascribed seems to be the large brown wolf of Lewis and 

 Clark ; and, according to them, it inhabits not only the Atlantic countries, but also the borders of the 

 Pacific, and the mountains which approach the Columbian River, between the great falls and rapids, 

 but is not found on the Missouri to the westward of the Platte. Sir John, however, had never seen 

 any of these brown wolves. 



Lawson thus describes the wolf of Carolina : " It is the dog of the woods. The Indians had no 

 other curs before the Christians came amongst them. They are made domestic. When wild, they are 

 neither so large nor fierce as the European wolf. They are not man-slayers, neither is any creature in 

 Carolina, unless wounded. They go in great droves in the night to hunt deer, which they do as well 

 as the best pack of hounds ; nay, one of these will hunt down a deer. They are often so poor that 

 they can hardly run. When they catch no prey they go to a swamp, and fill their body full of mud; 

 if afterwards they chance to get anything of flesh, they will disgorge the mud and eat the other. 

 When they hunt in the night, and there are a great many together, they make the most hideous and 

 frightful noise that ever was heard. The fur makes good muffs. The skin, dressed to a parchment, 

 makes the best drum-heads, and, if tanned, makes the best sort ot shoes for the summer- 

 coiintries." 



According to Colonel Smith, the typical wolf of Europe and Asia, and the varieties belonging to 

 this tribe in America, may be described as animals occupying the two continents from within the 



* Lupus nuliilus. ( Lupus Mcxicanus. Smith. 



