JOHNSON — HABITS OF TIMBER WOLF 
11 
while every character observed in a phylum of extinct mammals is 
found to be kinetic or in a state of motion. 
Palseontology reveals many other paradoxes, unsuspected by zoology. 
For example, unprotected animals which may be breeding very rapidly 
and varying widely, like the mice, may be evolving very slowly, while 
highly protected mammals which are breeding slowly, like the ele- 
phants, may be evolving very rapidly. In these and many other 
animals, as recently pointed out by Conklin, there is an inverse ratio 
between the law of selection (survival and elimination) and the rate of 
adaptive evolution. This shows that in Nature evolution is not has- 
tened by rapid breeding and selection, but that rapid evolution may be 
due to other causes. 
American Museum of Natural History, New York City. 
A NOTE ON THE HABITS OF THE TIMBER WOLF 
By Charles Eugene Johnson 
Opportunities for close-up view of the wild timber wolf in action 
are, I believe, sufficiently rare to justify submitting the following notes. 
The summer of 1912 was spent in making some studies and collec- 
tions of mammals in northern Lake County, Minnesota, in a portion 
of the Superior National Forest. The evening of September 1, my 
companion, Harold N. Hanson, and I, traveling by canoe, returned 
to one of our main camps after a four days’ absence in a more remote 
locality. As we pulled up at our landing place, which was at the upper 
end of a rapids and about half a mile from our camp, we observed 
numerous wolf tracks in the mud along the river bank; these had not 
been there when we left camp a few days before. But it was now after 
sundown and too late for further investigation. 
The next day a strong northwest wind was blowing and at 3 : 30 in the 
afternoon, taking a couple of large traps and my rifle, I set out to dis- 
cover if possible the meaning of the many wolf tracks. Upon approach- 
ing the landing place I moved very cautiously, more as a matter of 
habit than with any expectation of seeing anything unusual. Just 
before emerging into the open space by the landing I caught the sound 
of gentle splashing in the water and, peering through a httle opening in 
the bushes, I saw a timber wolf in the river, stationary, but rising and 
falling as if ‘Treading water” and taking savage bites at a large body 
