248 The Mammals of Colorado 
lower altitude in winter, but this movement cannot be very 
great, for the animals winter at least as high as 10,000 feet. 
This vertical migration may of course result in the mingling 
of two different forms for a time. 
Coyotes have long been noted for their peculiar howling, 
which possesses a ventriloqual quality which gives the 
hearer the impression that instead of listening to one animal 
he hears half a dozen or more. While they usually howl 
only at night, they are sometimes heard during the day. One 
winter in Gunnison County, the coyotes used invariably 
to howl in the daytime, before a storm. Then during the 
storm they seemed to remain quiet, and probably kept in 
their dens until the storm was over; then the first clear night 
after the weather cleared the howling would be heard again, 
and next morning their tracks seen on the snow. 
As with the wolves, coyotes breed but once a year, mating 
in January and February, while the young are born in late 
March or in April. In June they come out around the 
burrows, and by August are left to shift for themselves. 
The young are born in dens, which may be holes of badgers or 
other animals enlarged by the coyote, or holes among rocks 
or washed-out places in the banks of streams or gulches. 
The number of young in a litter is from four to eight or more. 
The food of coyotes is of course mainly animal, but they 
are known to eat vegetable food also; this is usually fruit of 
some kind; in Colorado they have been known to eat water- 
melons, in California peaches, apricots, and grapes. There 
they sometimes eat juniper, manzanita berries, and the fruit 
of the prickly pear (Opimtia) as well. Their animal food 
is practically anything they can get, from the flesh of the 
largest animals down to mice; birds, reptiles, fish, and crus- 
taceans are also eaten. In their food habits coyotes are in 
many ways beneficial; they kill many prairie-dogs and 
rabbits, both cottontails and jack rabbits, and the latter 
