560 



REPORT OF STATE GEOLOGIST. 



wolf. However, Hon. L. Darrow, of Laporte, who has hunted the 

 animals, regards some from northern Indiana as gray wolves, or 

 crosses between the gray wolf and coyote. One that he killed 

 weighed 63 pounds, which would be a very heavy, though not impos- 

 sible weight for a coyote. 



Habits. — The methods of the wolves in seeking their prey afford 

 a marked contrast to the habits of the lynxes and other members of 

 the cat tribe. Instead of the ambush and still hunt used by the 

 latter animals, ■ the wolves resort almost wholly to the open chase, 

 not attempting to slip up on their quarry, but relying on fleetness 

 of foot and soundness of wind. All the while they make the night 

 resound with their howling, which serves not only to strike terror 

 into the hearts of the weaker creatures of the forest and plain, but 

 also to call their kind to aid in bringing down the quarry. They 

 are social animals more truly than the bison or any other mammals, 

 for their success in securing food depends largely on their united 

 efforts. Their social habits are not prompted by love, and if we 

 may believe the tales of many pioneers and hunters, they turn upon 

 the weak and wounded of their own kind in times of famine and 

 devour them. It seems, therefore, that this habit of hunting in 

 packs has been developed by natural selection. The wolves that 

 joined forces fared better than those that did not, and hence the 

 habit of joining forces for the hunt has been perpetuated. 



The early settlers lived in considerable fear of wolves. It is 

 possible that the animals would attack a lone and unarmed man, 

 when driven by hunger, in those days before they learned to know 

 and dread the white man. Certainly a child alone in the woods on 

 a winter night would not be safe. But the wolf is a cowardly, skulk- 

 ing animal, and where it survives at the present time there is little 

 danger that even the largest and hungriest pack will attack an 

 active man. They are, moreover, cunning and teachable animals, 

 and have learned that man is their superior, and hence leave him 

 alone. Mr. Ernest T. Seton 's stories of wolves that have learned to 

 profit by all sorts of experiences, and have taught others of their 

 kind to avoid traps, poisons and man, are to be regarded as ideal- 

 ized rather than scientifically ac(Hirate accounts, but they are 

 founded on many incontrovertible facts. 



The family life, like the social life, of these animals, is more 

 highly dev(^l()[)ed than is usual among mammals. The animals 

 mate in late winter, the yonng being born two or three months 

 later. The pair remain t()g(^tlier during the summer, the male doing 

 most of 1h(^ hunting whik^ the whel])s are small. Later the parents 



