154 WATCHED BY WILD ANIMALS 
or foxes; and all wolves are subject to attacks 
from parasites and disease. 
Old storybooks are full of tales of wolf fero- 
city. Wolves pursue the lone horseman, or 
even attack the occupants of a sleigh. A fiddler 
returning at night is forced to take refuge on top 
of a deserted building or in a treetop; or a mail 
carrier narrowly escapes with his life after losing 
his sack. All too frequently we still hear 
stories of wolves attacking a solitary traveller, 
but careful investigation of these stories shows 
them to be sheer fabrications. 
The howl of the wolf is deep, while that 
of the coyote is shrill and high-pitched. It 
appears that wolves have a language and a 
system of signalling. These consist of howls, 
snarls, and barks of varying length, with vary- 
ing spaces or accents. Wolves prowl and howl 
mostly at night; but it is not uncommon for 
them to hunt or to wander in the daytime. 
The gray wolf is known also as the timber 
wolf. He may be gray, grayish yellow, or 
grayish black, occasionally reddish; and now 
and then he verges on cream colour. The colour 
varies greatly, even among the members of a 
single and perhaps related pack. 
Formerly the gray wolf was distributed prac- 
tically over all North America. Though clas- 
sified into various sub-species, it really was the 
