The Wolf 307 



living forms. His range encircles the world within the 

 arctic zone, and it extends southward into the tropics in 

 America ; wolves roam over nearly all Asia, and at one 

 time they were found throughout Europe. 



"The common wolf," says Lockington, "is the largest 

 and fiercest animal of the group, and the only one that 

 is dangerous to man." Its average length is about four 

 feet six inches, it stands rather more than two feet high 

 at the shoulder, and it is a little higher behind than 

 before. These dimensions vary in geographical varieties ; 

 the French wolf being smaller than the German, the 

 Scandinavian larger, heavier, and deeper in the shoulder 

 than the Russian ; while wolves on this continent are not 

 so large as those of the Old World. All Asiatic forms 

 north of the Altai Mountains are modifications of the 

 common wolf of Europe, and the same is true of black 

 wolves in the Pyrenees and highlands of France, Spain, 

 Italy, and Russia, as well as of the white, lead-color, 

 black, and dull-red varieties of America. As a rule, the 

 wolf dwindles and degenerates within the tropics. Canis 

 pallipes, the Indian form, approaches the jackal, according 

 to Huxley, more closely than the members of any other cli- 

 matic group, and as Professor Baird remarks, the coyote 

 — Canis latrans, replaces the jackal in the New World. 



Finally, the wolf, though a flesh-eater and beast of prey, 

 possesses traits of structure which distinguish carnivora 

 less highly specialized than Felidce. Unlike the cats, its 

 limbs are long and less united with the body; freer in 

 their movements, and adapted to running rather than 

 to the short, bounding rush and spring of the latter. 



