PRELIMINARY LIST OF THE MAMMALS OF NEW YORK 343 
Mr Savage reports it not uncommon in Frie co. 
“The red fox is plentiful in most sections of Long Island east of the 
township of Oyster bay” (Helme). 
Canis occidentalis (Richardson) Timber wolf 
1829 Canis lupus occidentais Richardson, Fauna Boreali-Americana. 
I: 60. 
1842 Canis lupus De Kay, Zoology of New York, Mammalia. p. az. 
1882 Canis lupus Merriam, Linn. soc. New York. Trans. 1: 42. 
1898 Canis nubilis Mearns, U.S. Nat. mus. Proc. 21: 360. 
1898 Canis occidentalis Bangs, American naturalist. July 1898. 32: 505. 
Type locality. Northern North America. 
Fraunal position. ‘This animal is so imperfectly known that it is impos- 
sible to assign it a definite faunal position. 
Habitat. Forests. 
Distribution in New York. While the wolf formerly ranged through- 
out the state it is now exterminated everywhere except in the wildest 
parts of the Adirondacks. 
Principal records. De Kay: “In some of the southern counties, where 
they were formerly so numerous as to require legislative enactments, they 
are now nearly extirpated . . . They are still found in the mountainous 
and wooded parts of the state and we believe are most numerous in St 
Lawrence and the adjacent counties” (’42, p. 43). 
Merriam: “Comparatively few wolves are now to be found in the 
Adirondacks, though 12 years ago they were quite abundant and used 
to hunt in packs of half a dozen or more . . . In September 1870 
I saw a pack of wolves drive a deer into the head of Seventh lake, 
Fulton chain . . . In the year 1871 the state put a bounty on 
their scalps, and it is a most singular coincidence that a great and 
sudden decrease in their number took place at about that time. What 
became of them is a great and to me inexplicable mystery, for it is 
known that but few were killed” (’82, p. 42-43). 
Mearns: ‘It is generally believed that the last wolf disappeared from 
the Catskills along with the deer many years ago though one man 
expressed the belief that some still remain” (’98, p. 360). 
In 1823 Pierce found the wolf still common in the Catskills. He believed 
that there were “ two varieties, . . . one called the deer wolf from his 
habit of pursuing deer for which his light grey hound form adapts him. The 
other of a more clumsy figure with short legs and large body more fre- 
quently depredates upon flocks under the protection of man” (’23, p. 93). 
