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wolves, and formerly ranged over the whole Upited States 
and Canada. The settlement of the country has, however, 
driven them, with other noxious beasts, to the more secluded 
forests and plains, where they are beyond the reach of man. 
The common color of the species is grayish-white, but it varies 
all the way from pure white to deep black. 
The Common Wolf (C. lupus ) of Europe resembles the 
gray wolf. 
The Prairie Wolf or Cayote (C. latrans') is well known 
to all western travelers. Beyond the Missouri river they 
range in packs of from five or six to twenty, from Mexico 
well up into British America. They are intermediate in size 
between the fox and gray wolf, and live mostly on the carcasses 
which are found upon the plains. 
Melanistic specimens of this animal, and also of the timber 
wolf, several of which are almost entirely black, are in the 
collection. 
The Jackal plays in Africa the part taken in America by 
the cayote. The North African Jackal ( Canis anthus), the 
Black-backed (C. mesomelas ), and the Indian Jackal (C. 
aureus ), are frequently exhibited. 
South America possesses several species of small wolves, very 
fox-like in some of their characters. By some naturalists they 
have been constituted a group intermediate between the two. 
Azara’s Fox (C. azarce ) and the Crab-eating Fox (C. can- 
crivorus') belong to this group. 
It is an open question whether the Dingo, or Wild Dog 
(C. dingo), of Australia is an aboriginally wild stock, or is 
descended from introduced progenitors which ran wild. In 
any case their fossil remains are found in Pleistocene strata. 
They are cowardly brutes, susceptible of little domestication, 
and cause by their depredations much loss to the sheep- 
raisers of Australia. 
A curious little dog, whose external appearance is indicated 
by its name, is the Raccoon-like Dog (Canisprocyonoides), 
of north-eastern Asia. 
The dogs, wolves, and foxes, with the jackals, constitute a 
family of Carnivora known as the Canida . 
