Mammal Study 



255 



THE WOLF 



|HE study of the wolf should precede the lessons 

 on the fox and the dog. After becoming 

 familiar with the habits of wolves, the pupils 

 will be much better able to understand the 

 nature of the dog and its life as a wild animal. 

 In most localities, the study of the wolf must, 

 of course, be a matter of reading, unless the 

 pupils have an opportunity to study the 

 animal in traveling manageries or in zoo- 

 logical gardens. However, in all the gov- 

 ernment preserves, the timber wolf has 

 multiplied to such an extent, that it may 



become a factor in the lives of many people in the United States. This 



wolf ranged in packs over New York State a hundred years ago, but 



was finally practically exterminated in most of the eastern forests, except 



in remote and mountainous localities. A glance at Bulletin 72 by 



Vernon Bailey, published by the U. S. Department of Agriculture, 



Forest Service, is a revelation of the success of the timber wolf, in 



coming back to his own, as soon as the forest preserves furnished 



plenty of game, and forbade hunters. Timber wolves are returning of 



late years to Western Maine and Northern New Hampshire; Northern 



Michigan and Wisconsin have them in greater numbers ; some have also 



been killed in the Apalachian Mountains of Tennessee, Virginia and West 



Virginia, but their stronghold is in the great Rocky Mountain Region and 



the Northwestern Sierras, from which they have never been driven. 

 It might be well to begin this lesson on the wolf with a talk about the 



gray wolves which 



our ancestors had to 



contend with, and 



also with stories of 



the coyote or prairie 



wolf which has 



learned to adapt 



itself to civilization 



and flourishes in the 



regions west of the 



Rocky Mountains, 



despite men and 



dogs. Literature is 



rich in wolf stories. 



Although Kipling's 



famous M o w g li 



Stories belong t o 



the realm of fiction, 



yet they contain 



interesting accounts 



of the habits of the 



wolves of India, and 



are based upon the 



himter's and track- 



Cray Wolf 



