THE DOGS. 
299 
mon red fox ( Vtdpes vulgaris), with its yarieties, the cross, 
silver, and black fox, as well as the wolf {Cams lupus), are 
valuable for their furs. The common red fox is more com- 
mon even in thickly settled portions of the Eastern States 
than is commonly supposed. Merriam thinks that it is as 
abundant now as a hundred years ago. Wily, crafty, and 
sagacious to a degree almost beyond credibility, he defies 
the superior skill and intelligence of man, and meets with 
shrewd manoeuvre and subtle stratagem all attempts at his 
extermination." He is active by day as well as night, and 
preys upon skunks, woodchucks, musk-rats, hares, rab- 
bits, squirrels, mice, and small birds and eggs. He is a 
well-known and much-dreaded depredator of the poultry- 
yard, destroying with equal alacrity turkeys, ducks, geese, 
hens, chickens, and doves; and has been known to make off 
with young lambs. He will also eat carrion, and even fish, 
and is said to be fond of ripe grapes and strawberries.'^ 
Merriam, from whom we have quoted, tells us that the fox 
makes its nest in caverns and ledges of rocks, in burrows 
in the earth, and occasionally in old stumps and hollow 
logs. From four to nine young are brought forth at a 
time, the usual iperiod being with us (Northern New York) 
the latter part of March or first of April. 
The wolf is one of the most cowardly and yet wary, crafty, 
and sagacious of our wild beasts, and, when game is abun- 
dant, wantonly destructive and wasteful. It makes its lair 
in ropky caverns, under the roots of fallen trees, and in 
hollow logs. The young are born in April and May, from 
six to ten pups constituting a litter. (Merriam.) The wolf 
is mostly gray northward, becoming '^southward more and 
more blackish and reddish, till in Florida black wolves pre- 
dominate and in Texas red ones." The prairie wolf or 
coyote {Cams latrans) is characteristic of the Western 
plains and Pacific coast. The Indian dogs breed with the 
coyote, and the offspring is fertile. This fact appears to 
support the theory that the domestic dog (with its conven- 
tional name Cmiis familiaris Linn.) is a descendant of the 
