100 POPULAR OFFICIAL GUIDE. 
COYOTE: PRAIRIE WOLF. 
an old friend; and the high-pitched, staccato cry—half 
howl and half bark—with which he announces the dawn, 
is associated with memories of vast stretches of open coun- 
try, magnificent distances, sage-brush and freedom. Be- 
cause of his fondness of barking, Thomas Say, the natural- 
ist who first described this species, christened it, Canis 
latrans, which means ‘‘barking wolf.’’ 
This animal averages about one-third smaller than the 
gray wolf, and while the finest male specimens are, in the 
autumn, really handsome animals, at other times the major- 
ity are of very ordinary appearance. At no time, however, 
even in the dark, is a Coyote a courageous animal. So far 
as man is concerned, a band of a thousand coyotes would 
be as easily put to flight as one; but in hanging upon the 
ragged edges of civilization, and living by its wits, the 
Coyote is audacity itself. By inheritance, and also by per- 
sonal experience, this animal knows to a rod how far it 
is safe to trust a man with a gun. If the hunter has left 
his gun behind him, the Coyote knows it at once, and 
boldly flaunts himself within stone’s throw of his enemy. 
The Coyote varies in color quite markedly, exhibiting the 
gray, brown and black phases. Formerly it was supposed 
that one species comprehended all, but Dr. Merriam’s series 
of specimens from all parts of the West and Southwest 
have led him to separate these animals into eleven species. 
