WOLVES. | 497 
tions, owing to the development of a more or less marked grey or red tinge; while 
in some cases the fur may be much paler than usual, and in others nearly or quite 
black. In Europe the light-coloured varieties appear to be characteristic of northern, 
and the dark of southern regions, black or blackish wolves being not uncommon 
in Spain. As in Europe there is a black race of the ordinary wolf, so black 
specimens of the woolly variety occur in Tibet; these animals having shaggy fur 
of a uniform black colour, except the muzzle, feet, and patch on the chest, which 
are white. More uncertainty has prevailed as to whether the Japanese wolf 
(C. hodophylax) is distinct from the European form; the Indian wolf is regarded, 
however, by Mr. Blanford (although not by Professor Mivart) as entitled to rank 
as a Separate species. 
The North American wolf has frequently been regarded as specifically distinct 
from the European one, under the name of C. occidentalis. Dr. C. H. Merriam 
has, however, long regarded the two forms as specifically identical, and the same 
view is taken by Prof. Mivart. The latter writer observes that although the fur 
of most American wolves is less red than is generally the case with European 
specimens, especially on the legs and the hinder-part of the head, yet North 
European examples have a nearly similar coloration. Then, again, the American 
skins generally have more black on the back than most European ones; but this 
tendency to blackness is still more marked in Spanish wolves. As in Europe, there 
is in America great individual and racial variation in the colour of the wolf. Thus, 
according to Mr. S. F. Baird, there is a pure white wolf on the Upper Missouri, a 
dusky blackish wolf on the Lower Missouri, a black wolf in Florida and the 
Southern United States, and a red wolf in Texas. There is, moreover, considerable 
difference in respect of size and shape; the southern wolves being smaller, more 
slender, and more “leggy” than those from the extreme north: while they 
have also shorter and closer fur. The southern limit of the wolf in America is 
the State of Guanajuato, in Mexico. Including, then, the whole of the varieties 
mentioned above, with the exception of the Indian wolf, under a single specific title, 
the range of the common wolf will be very extensive: and will embrace the whole 
of Europe, the greater part of Asia to the northward of the Himalaya, and as far 
east as Japan, and nearly the whole of North America. 
In Europe the wolf has disappeared from Britain and Central and Northern 
Germany, but still lives in the wilder or more mountainous districts of the rest of 
the Continent, being especially abundant in many parts of Russia—both European 
and Asiatic. Wolves were formerly abundant in the British Islands; in Yorkshire 
they were common in the reign of Richard II.; while in the time of Cromwell parts 
of Ireland were much infested by them. Mr. Harting states that the wolf became 
extinct in England during the reign of Henry VII.; that it survived in Scotland 
until 1743; and that the last was killed in Ireland, according to Richardson, in 
1770, or, according to Sir J. E. Tennent, subsequently to 1766. 
In America, owing to the rapid spread of cultivation, wolves are disappearing, 
or becoming scarce in all but the wilder districts. Prof. Mivart, from data suppled 
him by American naturalists, states that at the present day the wolf is found east 
of the Mississippi and south of Canada only in the still nearly unsettled parts of 
the country, as the northern portion of New England and New York, portions of 
VOL. 1.—32 
