180 

about 3% inches long. Notwithstanding this vor- 
acity, the snake bird can go for a long time with- 
out food and apparently without any great suffer- 
ing, although those starved in captivity became 
very troublesome to the people who had them in 
charge. Besides the fish which they eat, they de- 
vour, no doubt, many sorts of aquatic insects, 
crayfish, leeches, shrimps, tadpoles, salamanders 
and such young reptiles as they may come across. 
The general color of the male is glossy green- 
ish black, but the long loose feathers of the neck 
are pale gray or purplish white. There are some 
small white patches and streaks on the feathers 
and scapulas. The tail is black. The female is 
much paler than the male. She has only a few of 
the elongated feathers on the neck. The head 
and hind neck are pale brown, while the foreneck 
and breast are pale reddish-brown, and there is 
a band of deep chestnut across the lower breast. 
The upper parts are large, as in the male, but 
much paler and duller. 
William Bartram, the Quaker traveler and nat- 
uralist, who visited Florida in 1773, wrote of the 
snake bird: 
“Here is in this river and in the waters all over 
Florida, a very curious and handsome species of 
birds; the people call them snake birds; I think 
[ have seen paintings of them on the Chinese 
screens and other Indian pictures; they seem to 
be a species of cormorant or loon (Colymbus 
cauda elongata), but far more beautiful and deli- 
cately formed than any other species that I have 
ever seen. * * * They delight to sit in little 
peaceable communities, on the dry limbs of trees, 
hanging over the still waters, with their wings 
and tails expanded, I suppose to cool and air 
themselves, when at the same time they behold 
their images in the watery mirror. At such times 
when we approach them, they drop off the limbs 
into the water as if dead, and for a minute or two 
are not to be seen; when on a sudden, at a vast 
distance, their long, slender heads and neck only 
appear, and have very much the appearance of a 
snake, and no other part of them is to be seen 
when swimming in the water, except sometimes 
the tip end of their tail. In the heat of the day 
they are seen in great numbers, sailing very high 
in the air, over lakes and rivers. 
“T doubt not but if this bird had been an inhabi- 
tant of the Tiber in Ovid’s days, it would have 
furnished him with a subject for some beautiful 
and entertaining metmorphoses. I believe it feeds 
entirely on fish, for its flesh smells and tastes 
intolerably strong of it; it is scarcely to be eaten 
unless constrained by insufferable hunger.” 
The drawing is from a specimen in the Phila- 
delphia Zoological Park. There have also been 
on exhibition specimens in the New York Zoo- 
logical Society’s Park in the Bronx, several of 
these birds being confined in a large cage with 
a tank in which they may swim. 
Some Notes on Wolves. 

(Concluded from page 136.) 

Wolves of the South. 
Very different in character from the observa- 
tions of Mr. MacFarlane are those made by 
Mr. Vernon Bailey, chief field naturalist of the 
Biological Survey, and as different is the coun- 
try in which these observations were made. 
This is Texas, on the border of the tropics, yet 
aay we have a gray wolf, a black wolf and a red 
WoOlt. 
The big gray wolf, commonly called lobo, 
lovo, loafer—lobo being the Spanish word for 
wolf—is still common over most of the plain 
and mountain country of western Texas, but 
chiefly west of the tooth meridian. Such ma- 
terial as Mr. Bailey was able to get in the way 
of specimens and descriptions by the ranchmen 
over this region apply in every instance to a 
large light gray wolf, while along the southern 
edge of the plain almost all of the ranchmen 
distinguish between the red wolf or big coyote 
of the rough country and the larger, lighter-col- 
ored “loafer” of the plains to the north. At Com- 
stock, where bounties are paid by sheep owners 
for the coyote and the common red wolf, the 
“loafer” is unknown. A specimen killed twenty 

[FEB. 3, 1906. 

miles north of there, on the higher plains, in 
1901, excited special comment and raised the 
question whether or not the range of the gray 
wolf is being extended southward. 
The Big Wolf. 
“These wolves are most abundant in and about 
the Davis and Guadalupe mountains and over 
the Staked Plains and open country east of the 
Pecos River. Whether they are residents in 
the Pecos Valley or merely wanderers between 
the plains and the mountains is not easily de- 
termined, but I have no record of their breed- 
ing in the low part of the valley, while they are 
known to breed commonly in the high country 
on both sides. The present abundance of the 
species is not easily determined, as inferences 
are mainly drawn from the numbers killed, 
rather than the numbers alive. Personally, I 
have known of six or eight that were killed in 
1901 and 1902 in the Davis Mountains, and a few 
in the Guadalupe Mountains and on the Staked 
Plains that were poisoned or dug out of their 
burrows. While my own observations have 
been limited, they aid in determining the ac- 
curacy of numerous other reports from resident 
hunters and ranchmen. ‘These reports indicate 
that the wolves are not decreasing in numbers 
rapidly, if at all, in spite of those killed by ranch- 
men and by professional wolf hunters. On 
many of the large ranches a special bounty of 
$10, $20, or sometimes $50, is paid for every 
wolf killed. Several small ranchers often com- 
bine to offer a large bounty in addition to that 
paid by the county, so that wolf hunting becomes 
a profitable business. In such cases there is 
a strong temptation for the hunters to save the 
breeding females and dig out the young each 
year for the bounty, thus making their busi- 
ness not only profitable, but permanent. The 
hunters also bring. wolves from a distance to 
the ranch paying the highest bounty. The 
bounty system offers dangerous temptations and 
has never proved effectual or even highly bene- 
ficial over any large area. 
“To protect themselves from fraud and their 
stock from wolves many of the large ranch 
owners employ wolf hunters by the month and 
pay them well to keep the wolves and other 
noxious animals from their range. On the 
whole, when skilled hunters can be procured, 
this seems by far the most economical and sat- 
isfactory method. 
“When opportunity offers, the ‘loafer’ not only 
kills sheep, but often kills a large number, ap- 
parently for the pleasure of killing. His regu- 
lar and most serious depredations, however, are 
on the scattered and unguarded cattle of the 
range. Two or three wolves usually hunt to- 
gether and sometimes pull down a steer, but 
most of their meat is procured from yearlings 
or cows. Occasionally a colt is killed, but not 
often. Where two or three wolves take up their 
residence on a ranch and kill one or mofe head 
of cattle almost every day, the ranchmen become 
so seriously alarmed that they frequently offer 
a reward of $50 or $100 apiece for the scalps. 
In his report from Monahans, Merritt Cary 
writes: 
““T secured a skull of a very large female 
lobo wolf, which was killed on Hawkins’s 
ranch in March, 1902, by Hugh Campbell. The 
skin when stretched on the side of the house 
is said to have measured 8 feet 4 inches from 
nose to end of tail, and was turned in to the 
Stockman’s Association, which paid Campbell 
$50 bounty on the animal. This female wolf 
was the mate to “Big Foot,’ a famous wolf 
throughout the region, whose track is always 
recognized by an extremely large right fore- 
foot. On the ‘second day of my stay at 
Hawkins’s ranch Campbell and I got on the 
trail of “Big Foot” and another wolf, which had 
crossed our own trail within two hours. AIl- 
though on the trail for four hours, we got no 
sight of them, nor did we find where they had 
killed any calves. There is a standing reward 
of $75 for “Big Foot” by the Stockmen’s Associa- 
tion; but although persistently hunted and 
trapped for half a dozen years, and thoroughly 
known to every cowboy in the region, the wily 
old wolf still retains his freedom, spurning 
poisoned baits, even disdaining to touch any 
meat not freshly killed by himself.’ 
“From Lipscomb, July, 1903, Howell reports: 
‘Gray wolves occur in small numbers in this 
county, and a few cattle have recently been 
killed by them.’ 
“In disposition the ‘loafer’ is quite different 
from the coyote, lacking its cunning and assur- 
ance in the vicinity of man, and showing 
greater intelligence in the wild state and a better 
disposition when tamed. A _ half-grown ‘loafer’ 
that I found playing about the hotel at Portales, 
a little town on the edge of the Staked Plains, 
was like a big, good-natured puppy, full of fun 
and play, but became fighting angry if roughly 
handled. Although running at liberty over the 
town, he had never tried his puppy teeth on the 
chickens and pigs around him. He was the only 
survivor of a litter of seven, dug out of a bur- 
row before their eyes were open. The others 
died, but ‘Sampson’ was nursed on a bottle for 
seventeen days—until his eyes opened. When I 
saw him in June he already gave promise of 
becoming a good-sized ‘loafer. He had a 
powerful voice and always responded to music 
with a doleful howl. 
“The black wolf is reported from a few lo- 
calities in the timbered region of eastern Texas, 
but in most cases as ‘common years ago, now 
very rare or quite extinct. The more numer- 
ous reports of a ‘large gray wolf’ or ‘timber 
wolf in the same region merely indicate varia- 
tion in color, and show that only a minority of 
the individuals are entirely black. Presumably 
they are all of the same species. Apparently 
there is not extant a Texas skin or skull of this 
wolf to show whether or not it is the same 
species as the one in Florida, and it is greatly 
to be hoped that specimens will find their way 
to the National Museum before the species be- 
comes entirely extinct.” 
Audubon, who had more experience with these 
wolves in their wild state and original abundance 
than any naturalist will ever have again, con- 
sidered the black wolf of eastern Texas, Louisi- 
ana, southern Missouri, Kentucky, North Caro- 
lina, and Florida, as one species, and carefully 
distinguished it from the “red wolf” of southern 
Texas and the white or gray wolf of the plains. 
“Since his work on the coyotes in 1897, Doctor 
Merriam has made special effort to procure 
specimens of the large coyote or small wolf of 
southern Texas. As a result there are at the 
present time fourteen skulls and four skins of 
‘this wolf in the Survey collection from Colum- 
bus, Corpus Christi, O’Connorport, Port 
Lavaca, Kerr County, Edwards county, and 
Laredo, in addition to two skulls in the National 
Museum, one from Fort Richardson, Jack 
county, Texas, and one from Matamoras, 
Mexico. Based on these specimens and the 
field reports of the Biological Survey a definite 
range can be assigned the species, covering the 
whole of southern Texas north to the mouth 
of the Pecos and the mouth of the Colorado, 
and still further north along the strip of mes- 
quite country east of the plains, approximately 
covering the semi-arid part of the Lower 
Sofioran zone. As yet there are no specimens 
to show whether these wolves extend into the 
more arid region west of the Pecos. While: 
apparently nowhere overlapping the range of 
the larger, lighter-colored ‘lobo’ or ‘loafer’ of 
the plains, they take its place to the south and 
east as soon as the plains break down and the 
scrub oak and mesquite country begins, but 
their whole range is shared with the coyote. 
The ranchmen invariably distinguished be- 
tween them and coyotes, and with good reason, 
for the wolves kill young cattle, goats and colts 
with as much regularity as the coyotes kill 
sheep. While paying a bounty of $1 or $2 for 
coyotes, the ranchmen usually pay $10 or $20 
for red wolves.” 
Coyotes of the South. 
If the various forms of coyotes are not found 
much north of the Saskatchewan River, they 
certainly abound about the Rio Grande, at least 
four forms being found in Texas. Mr. Bailey 
says: 
“The Texas coyote is more or less common 
