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ART. VIII.— Ow the Giant Wolf of North Amenca.—L\j?vs gigas. By John K. 



TOWNSEND, M. D. 



In the year 1834, accompanied by my friend Mr. Thomas Nuttall, I made the 

 overland journey across the continent of North America to the Pacific. Our views 

 were directed solely to natural history ; Mr. Nuttall's to botany, mine to zoology. 

 The results of this expedition have long since been published in various scientific 

 works, but especially in the Journal of the Academy of Natural Sciences of 

 Philadelphia, in Audubon's Birds of America, and in Audubon's and Bachman's 

 Quadrupeds. In my narrative of that journey, I further indicated some discoveries 

 which various circumstances have since prevented my investigating to completion, 

 and among them are a few observations on the Wolves of North America ; and more 

 especially the Giant wolf, which forms the subject of the following communication. 



Lupus gigas. — The Giant Wolf 



Sijn. Lupus occidentalis, Peale, U. S. Expl. Exped. Zoology, p. 26. 



Description. — Color of the back, front of the fore legs, the dorsum and tip of the 

 tail, black, interspersed with brown hairs. Other parts ferruginous brown, excepting 

 the throat, sides, abdomen, and hinder legs, which are cinereous. Head large, of 

 mixed black brown and ash tints ; inside of the ears yellowish brown. Tail shorter 

 than in the common wolf, moderately bushy, but full at the end. 



The above description, derived from two specimens, answers in every essential 

 particular to that given by Mr. Peale, who further remarks of the hair of the back, 

 that the " hairs of the back are white one third of their length from the roots, the rest 

 black with an obscure fulvous bar." My specimens have lain so long in spirits that 

 I cannot so well determine this inner color, which has no doubt been the same in 

 all the specimens, though it is now a dirty straw color. 



It is well known, however, that color constitutes a very uncertain element in the 

 specific characters of wolves ; and I rely on the great size, the short tail, and, above 

 all, on the cranial peculiarities of the Lupus gigas, to distinguish it from all allied or 

 congeneric species. 



Dr. Morton has furnished us with the following measurements of this animal, 

 compared with those of the largest of four common grey wolves : 



