138 University of California Publications in Zoology. [Vol. 7 



is consequently a dirty yellowish brown, the worn remnant of 

 the old coat, but the new hairs coming out are glossy black, 

 with a few white ones intermixed. The captor, John Darrow, 

 gave us much information about these and other animals, and 

 told us that the wolves will sometimes even attack a bear. Several 

 of the Indian hunters and trappers that I talked with expressed 

 considerable fear of them, and they all gave exaggerated accounts 

 of their ferocity and cunning. He also told us that he had 

 twice killed pregnant females, each containing twelve embryos. 



Several hunters, white men and Indians, told us that the 

 island wolves were sometimes black, sometimes gray or yellowish, 

 and sometimes a mixture of these colors. I saw several skins 

 of Alaskan wolves at various times, and some were very dark, 

 much like the one described above, some grayish, and a few gray 

 or yellowish with black dorsal stripe and tail and a black mark 

 across the shoulders. 



The specimen secured measures as follows : approximate 

 length of tanned skin from tip of nose to tip of skin of tail 

 1945 mm. ; tail vertebrae 487 ; hind foot 304. Skull : total length 

 268 mm.; basal length, 229; zygomatic width 152; width across 

 post-orbital processes 73 ; median length of nasals 97 ; palatal 

 length 132; leUgth of upper tooth row (anterior edge of canine 

 to posterior edge of last molar) 110 ; length of canine 34 ; length 

 of lower jaw 205; height of coronoid process 77. 



Lutra canadensis periclvzomae Elliot. Island Otter. 



Otter appear to be quite generally distributed over this 

 whole region, but they have been so incessantly trapped that 

 their numbers are greatly reduced. We saw more or less fresh 

 sign at Kupreanof, Kuiu, Coronation, and Warren islands, and 

 also on the Taku Eiver. At Three-mile Arm, Kuiu Island, an 

 Indian trapping there had caught just two during the winter. 

 One specimen, a female, was secured by Hasselbbrg on Warren 

 Island, May 19 (no. 8334) as it was swimming across a stream, 

 when he saw it and shot at it with his 45-70 rifle. On skinning 

 it no hole could be found, nor were any bones broken, and as its 

 lungs were greatly congested, and it bled profusely at the mouth 

 and nostrils, we concluded that the bullet must have struck the 

 water immediately beneath the animal, the concussion killing it. 



