From the earliest settlement of America the bobcat has figured largely in hunting literature, and the popular estimate of its character is well attested by the frontier idea of the superlative physical prowess of a man who can “whip his weight in wildcats.” Although our wildcat usually weighs less than 20 pounds, if its reputed fierceness could be sustained it would be an awkward foe. But, so far as man is concerned, unless it is cornered and forced to defend itself, it is extremely timid and inoffensive.

Like all cats, it is very muscular and active, and to the rabbits, squirrels, mice, grouse, and other small game upon which it feeds is a persistent and remorseless enemy. Although an expert tree-climber, it spends most of its time on the ground, where it ordinarily seeks its prey. It is most numerous in districts where birds and small mammals abound, and parts of California seem especially favorable for it. At a mountain ranch in the redwood forest south of San Francisco one winter some boys with dogs killed more than eighty bobcats.

Ordinarily the bobcat seems to be rather uncommon, but its nocturnal habits usually prevent its real numbers being actually known. In districts where not much hunted it is not uncommonly seen abroad by day, especially in winter, when driven by hunger.

The bay lynx makes its den in hollows in trees, in small caves, and in openings among rock piles wherever quiet and safety appear assured. Although a shy animal, it persists in settled regions if sufficient woodland or broken country remains to give it shelter. From such retreats it sallies forth at night, and not only do the chicken roosts of careless householders suffer, but toll is even taken among the lambs of sheep herds.

As in the case of most small cats, the stealthy hunting habits of the bay lynx renders it excessively destructive to ground-frequenting birds, especially to quail, grouse, and other game birds. For this reason, like many of its kind, it is outlawed in all settled parts of the country.

MOUNTAIN LION (Felis couguar and its subspecies)

The mountain lion, next to the jaguar, is the largest of the cat tribe native to America. In various parts of its range it is also known as the panther, cougar, and puma. It is a slender-bodied animal with a small head and a long round tail, with a total length varying from seven to nine feet and a weight from about 150 to 200 pounds.

It has from two to five young, which are paler brown than the adult and plainly marked with large dusky spots on the body and with dark bars on the tail. These special markings of the young, as in other animals, are ancestral, and here appear to indicate that in the remote past our plain brown panther was a spotted cat somewhat like the leopard.

No other American mammal has a range equal to that of the mountain lion. It originally inhabited both North and South America from southern Quebec and Vancouver Island to Patagonia and from the Atlantic to the Pacific coasts. Within this enormous territory it appears to be equally at home in an extraordinary variety of conditions. Formerly it was rather common in the Adirondacks of northern New York and still lives in the high Rocky Mountains of the West, where it endures the rigors of the severest winter temperatures. It is generally distributed, where large game occurs, in the treeless ranges of the most arid parts of the southwestern deserts, and is also well known in the most humid tropical forests of Central and South America, whose gloomy depths are drenched by almost continual rain.

A number of geographic races of the species have been developed by the varied character of its haunts. These are usually characterized by differences in size and by paler and grayer shades in the arid regions and by darker and browner ones in the humid areas.

The mountain lion, while powerful enough to be dangerous to man, is in reality extremely timid. Owing to its being a potentially dangerous animal, the popular conception of it is that of a fearsome beast, whose savage exploits are celebrated in the folk-lore of our frontier. As a matter of fact, few wild animals are less dangerous, although there are authentic accounts of wanton attacks upon people, just as there are authentic instances of buck deer and moose becoming aggressive. It has a wild, screaming cry which is thrillingly impressive when the shades of evening are throwing a mysterious gloom over the forests. In the mountains of Arizona one summer a mountain lion repeatedly passed along a series of ledges high above my cabin at dusk, uttering this loud weird cry, popularly supposed to resemble the scream of a terrified woman.

The mountain lion is usually nocturnal, but in regions where it is not hunted it not infrequently goes abroad by day. It is a tireless wanderer, often traveling many miles in a single night, sometimes in search of game and again in search of new hunting grounds. I have repeatedly followed its tracks for long distances along trails, and in northern Chihuahua I once tracked one for a couple of miles from a bare rocky hill straight across the open, grassy plain toward a treeless desert mountain, for which it was heading, some eight or ten miles away.

Although inoffensive as to people, this cat is such a fierce and relentless enemy of large game and live stock that it is everywhere an outlaw. Large bounties on its head have resulted in its extermination in most parts of the eastern United States and have diminished its numbers elsewhere. It is not only hunted with gun and dog but also with trap and poison.

A mountain lion usually secures its prey by a silent, cautious stalk, taking advantage of every cover until within striking distance, and then, with one or more powerful leaps, dashing the victim to the ground with all the stunning impact of its weight. In a beautiful live-oak forest on the mountains of San Luis Potosi I once trailed one of these great cats to the spot where it had killed a deer a short time before, and could plainly read in the trail the story of the admirable skill with which it had moved from cover to cover until it reached a knoll at one side of the little glade where the deer was feeding. Then a great leap carried it to the deer’s back and struck the victim to the ground with such violence that it slid 10 or 12 feet across the sloping ground, apparently having been killed on the instant.

Another trail followed in the snow on the high mountains of New Mexico led to the top of a projecting ledge from which the lion had leaped out and down over 20 feet, landing on the back of a deer and sliding with it 50 feet or more down the snowy slope.

The mountain lion often kills calves, but is especially fond of young horses. In many range districts of the Western States and on the table-land of Mexico, owing to the depredations of this animal, it is impossible to raise horses. Unfortunately the predatory habits of this splendid cat are such that it can not continue to occupy the same territory as civilized man and so is destined to disappear before him.

JAGUAR (Felis hernandesi and its subspecies)

The jaguar, or “el tigre,” as it is generally known throughout Spanish America, is the largest and handsomest of American cats. Its size and deep yellow color, profusely marked with black spots and rosettes, give it a close resemblance to the African leopard. It is, however, a heavier and more powerful animal. In parts of the dense tropical forests of South America coal-black jaguars occur, and while representing merely a color phase, they are popularly supposed to be much fiercer than the ordinary animal.

Jaguars are characteristic animals of the tropics in both Americas, frequenting alike the low jungle of arid parts as well as the great forests of the humid regions. In addition, they range south into Argentina and north into the southwestern United States. Although less numerous within our borders than formerly, they still occur as rare visitants as far north as middle Texas, middle New Mexico, and northern Arizona. They are so strictly nocturnal that their presence in our territory is usually not suspected until, after depredations on stock usually attributed to mountain lions, a trap or poison is put out and reveals a jaguar as the offender. Several have been killed in this way within our border during the last ten years, including one not far from the tourist hotel at the Grand Canyon of Arizona.

Although so large and powerful, the jaguar has none of the truculent ferocity of the African leopard. During the years I spent in its country, mainly in the open, I made careful inquiry without hearing of a single case where one had attacked human beings. So far as I could learn, it has practically the same shy and cowardly nature as the mountain lion. Despite this, the natives throughout its tropical home have a great fear of “el tigre,” as I saw evidenced repeatedly in Mexico. Apparently this fear is based wholly on its strength and potential ability to harm man if it so desired.

Jaguars are very destructive to the larger game birds and mammals of their domain and to horses and cattle on ranches. On many large tropical ranches a “tigrero,” or tiger hunter, with a small pack of mongrel dogs, is maintained, whose duty it is immediately to take up the trail when a “tigre” makes its presence known, usually by killing cattle. The hunter steadily continues the pursuit, sometimes for many days, until the animal is either killed or driven out of the district. It is ordinarily hunted with dogs, which noisily follow the trail, but its speed through the jungle often enables it to escape. When hard pressed it takes to a tree and is easily killed.

Few predatory animals are such wanderers as the jaguar, which roams hundreds of miles from its original home, as shown by its occasional appearance far within our borders. In the heavy tropical forest it so commonly follows the large wandering herds of white-lipped peccaries that some of the Mexicans contend that every large herd is trailed by a tiger to pick up stragglers. Along the Mexican coast in spring, when sea turtles crawl up the beaches to bury their eggs in the sand, the rising sun often reveals the fresh tracks of the jaguar where it has traveled for miles along the shore in search of these savory deposits.

In one locality on the Pacific coast of Guerrero I found that the hardier natives had an interesting method of hunting the “tigre” during the mating period. At such times the male has the habit of leaving its lair near the head of a small canyon in the foothills early in the evening and following down the canyon for some distance, at intervals uttering a subdued roar. On moonlight nights at this time the hunter places an expert native with a short wooden trumpet near the mouth of the canyon to imitate the “tigre’s” call as soon as it is heard and to repeat the cry at proper intervals. After placing the caller, the hunter ascends the canyon several hundred yards and, gun in hand, awaits the approach of the animal. The natives have many amusing tales of the sudden exit of untried hunters when the approaching animal unexpectedly uttered its roar at close quarters.

JAGUARUNDI CAT, OR EYRA (Felis cacomitli and its subspecies)

The eyra differs greatly in general appearance from any of our other cats, although it is one of the most characteristic of the American members of this widely spread family. It is larger than an otter, with a small flattened head, long body, long tail, and short legs, thus having a distinctly otterlike form. It is characterized by two color phases—one a dull gray or dusky, and the other some shade of rusty rufous. Animals of these different colors were long supposed to represent distinct species, but it has been learned not only that color is the only difference between the two, but also that the two colors are everywhere found together, affording satisfactory evidence that they are merely color phases of the same species.

The eyra is a habitant of brush-grown or forested country, mainly in the lowlands, from the lower Rio Grande Valley of Texas south to Paraguay. In this vast territory it has developed a number of geographic races.

In southern Texas, where it is often associated with the ocelot, the eyra lives in dense thorny thickets of mesquites, acacias, ironwood, and other semitropical chaparral in a region of brilliant sunlight; but farther south it also roams the magnificent forests of the humid tropics, in which the sun rarely penetrates. It appears to be even more nocturnal and retiring than most of our cats, and but little is known of its life history. The results of thorough trapping in the dense thorny thickets near Brownsville, Texas, indicate that it is probably more common than is generally supposed.

The natives in the lowlands of Guerrero, on the Pacific coast of Mexico, informed me that the eyra in that region is fond of the vicinity of streams, and that it takes to the water and swims freely, crossing rivers whenever it desires. Its otterlike form goes well with such habits, and further information may prove that it is commonly a water-frequenting animal. Its unusual form and dual coloration and our lack of knowledge regarding the life of the eyra unite to make it one of the most interesting of our carnivores.

TIGER-CATS, OR OCELOTS (Felis pardalis and its relatives)

The brushy and forested areas of America from southern Texas and Sonora to Paraguay are inhabited by spotted cats of different species, varying from the size of a large house cat to that of a Canada lynx. Only one of these occurs in the United States. All are characterized by long tails and a yellowish ground color, conspicuously marked by black spots, and on neck and back by short, longitudinal stripes—a color pattern that strongly suggests the leopard.

In the lower Rio Grande Valley of Texas the tiger-cat is rather common, with the eyra-cat, in areas densely overgrown with thorny chaparral. Like most of the cat tribe, it is strictly nocturnal and by day lies well hidden in its brushy shelter. By night it wanders along trails over a considerable territory, seeking its prey. Birds of all kinds, including domestic poultry, are captured on their roosts, and rabbits, wood rats, and mice of many kinds, as well as snakes and other reptiles, are on its list of game.

Its reptile-eating habit was revealed to me unexpectedly one day in the dense tropical forest of Chiapas. I was riding along a steep trail beside a shallow brush-grown ravine when a tiger-cat suddenly rushed up the trunk of a tree close by. A lucky shot from my revolver brought it to the ground, and I found it lying in the ravine by the body of a recently killed boa about 6 or 7 feet long. It had eaten the boa’s head and neck when my approach interrupted the feast.

The first of these cats I trapped in Mexico was captured the night after my arrival, in a trail bordering the port of Manzanillo, on the Pacific coast. The rejoicing of the natives living close by evidenced the toll this marauder had been taking from their chickens.

The tiger-cat is much more quiet and less fierce in disposition than most felines. It excited my surprise and interest whenever I trapped one to note how nonchalantly it took the situation. The captive never dashed wildly about to escape, but when I drew near sat and looked quietly at me without the slightest sign of alarm and with little apparent interest. A small trap-hold, even on the end of a single toe, was enough to retain the victim. On one occasion, while a cat thus held sat looking at me, it quietly reached to one side and sank its teeth into the bark of a small tree to which the trap was attached, and then resumed its air of unconcern.

The tiger-cat brings within our fauna an interesting touch of the tropics and its exuberance of animal life. It is found in so small a corner of our territory, however, that, despite its mainly inoffensive habits, it is certain to be crowded out in the near future by the increased occupation of its haunts.

RED FOX (Vulpes fulva and its relatives)

Red foxes are characterized by their rusty red fur, black-fronted fore legs, and white-tipped tail. They inhabit the forested regions in the temperate and subarctic parts of both Old and New Worlds, and, like other types of animal life having a wide range, they break up into numerous distinct species and geographic races.

In America they originally ranged over nearly all the forested region from the northern limit of trees in Alaska and Canada south, east of the Great Plains, to Texas; also down the Rocky Mountains to middle New Mexico, and down the Sierra Nevada to the Mount Whitney region of California. They are unknown on the treeless plains of the West, including the Great Basin. Originally they were apparently absent from the Atlantic and Gulf States from Maryland to Louisiana, but have since been introduced and become common south to middle Georgia and Alabama.

Wherever red foxes occur they show great mental alertness and capacity to meet the requirements of their surroundings. In New England they steadily persist, though their raids on poultry yards have for centuries set the hand of mankind against them. For a time conditions favored them in parts of the Middle Atlantic States, for the sport of hunting to hounds was imported from England, and the foxes had partial protection. This exotic amusement has now passed and the fox must everywhere depend on his nimble wits for safety.

Since the days of Æsop’s fables tales of foxes and their doings have had their place in literature as well as in the folk-lore of the countryside. Many of their amazing wiles to outwit pursuers or to capture their prey give evidence of extraordinary mental powers.

Their bill of fare includes many items, as mice, birds, reptiles, insects, many kinds of fruits, and on rare occasions a chicken. The bad name borne by them among farmers, due to occasional raids on the poultry yard, is largely unwarranted. They kill enormous numbers of mice and other small rodents each year, and thus well repay the loss of a chicken now and then.

Red foxes apparently pair for life and occupy dens dug by themselves in a secluded knoll or among rocks. These dens, which are sometimes occupied for years in succession, always have two or more entrances opening in opposite directions, so that an enemy entering on one side may be readily eluded. The young, numbering up to eight or nine, are tenderly cared for by both parents.

Although they have been persistently hunted and trapped in North America since the earliest times, they still yield a royal annual tribute of furs. It is well known that the highly prized cross, as well as the precious black, and silver gray foxes are merely color phases occurring in litters of the ordinary red animal. Black skins are so highly prized that specially fine ones have sold for more than $2,500 each in the London market. The reward thus offered has resulted in the development of black fox fur-farms, which have been very successful in parts of Canada and the United States, thus originating a valuable new industry.

By the modern regulation of trapping, foxes and other fur-bearers are destined to survive wherever conditions are favorable. In addition to the economic value of foxes, the location of an occasional fox den here and there on the borders of a woodland tract, the meandering tracks in the snow, and the occasional glimpse of animals cautiously making their rounds add a keen touch of primitive nature well worth preserving in any locality.

ALASKA RED FOX (Vulpes kenaiensis)

The red fox of the Kenai Peninsula, Alaska, and the adjacent mainland is probably the largest of its kind in the world, although those of Kodiak Island and of the Mackenzie River valley are nearly as large. Compared with its relatives of the United States, the Kenai fox is a giant, with heavier, duller-colored coat and a huge tail, more like that of a wolf than of a fox. The spruce and birch forests of Alaska and the Mackenzie Valley are apparently peculiarly adapted to red foxes, as shown by the development there of these animals—good illustrations of the relative increase in size and vigor of animals in a specially favorable environment.

As noted in the general account of the red foxes, the occurrence of the black phase is sporadic, and the relative number of dark individuals varies greatly in different parts of their range. The region about the upper Yukon and its tributaries and the Mackenzie River basin are noted for the number of black foxes produced, apparently a decidedly greater proportion than in any other similarly large area. The prices for which these black skins sell in the London market prove them to be of equal quality with those from any other area.

Like other red foxes, the Alaskan species digs its burrows, with several entrances, in some dry secluded spot, where both male and female share in the care of the young. In northern wilds the food problem differs from that in a settled country. There the surrounding wild life is the only dependence, and varying hares, lemmings, and other mice are usually to be had by the possessor of a keen scent and an active body. In summer many nesting wild-fowl and their young are easy prey, while heathberries and other northern fruits are also available.

Winter brings a season of scarcity, when life requires the exercise of every trained faculty. The snow-white ptarmigan is then a prize to be gained only by the most skillful stalking, and the white hare is almost equally difficult to secure. At this season foxes wander many miles each day, their erratic tracks in the snow telling the tale of their industrious search for prey in every likely spot. It is in this season of insistent hunger that many of them fall victims to the wiles of trappers or to the unscrupulous hunter who scatters poisoned baits.

Fortunately the season for trapping these and other fur-bearers in Alaska is now limited by law and the use of poisons is forbidden. These measures will aid in preserving one of the valuable natural assets of these northern wilds.

GRAY FOX (Urocyon cinereoargenteus and its relatives)

Gray foxes average about the size of common red foxes, but are longer and more slender in body, with longer legs and a longer, thinner tail. They are peculiar to America, where they have a wide range—from New Hampshire, Wisconsin, and Oregon south through Mexico and Central America to Colombia. Within this area there are numerous geographic forms closely alike in color and general appearance, but varying much in size; the largest of all, larger than the red fox, occupying the New England States.

Gray foxes inhabit wooded and brush-grown country and are much more numerous in the arid or semiarid regions of the southwestern United States and western Mexico than elsewhere. In parts of California they are far more numerous than red foxes ever become. They do not regularly dig a den, but occupy a hollow tree or cavity in the rocks, where they bring forth from three to five young each spring. As with other foxes, the cubs are born blind and helpless, and are also almost blackish in color, entirely unlike the adults. The parents, as usual with all members of the dog family, are devoted to their young and care for them with the utmost solicitude.

Like other members of the tribe, they are omnivorous and feed upon mice, squirrels, rabbits, birds, and large insects, in addition to acorns or other nuts and fruits of all kinds. In Lower California they are very common about the date-palm orchards, which they visit nightly for fallen fruit. They also make nocturnal visits to poultry yards.

In some parts of the West they are called “tree foxes,” because when pursued by dogs they often climb into the tops of small branching trees.

On one occasion in Arizona I saw a gray fox standing in the top of a large, leaning mesquite tree, about thirty feet from the ground, quietly gazing in various directions, as though he had chosen this as a lookout point. As soon as he saw me he came down at a run and swiftly disappeared.

In the same region I found a den in the hollow base of an old live-oak containing three young only a few days old. The mother was shot as she sprang from the hole on my approach and the young taken to camp. There the skin of the old fox, well wrapped in paper, was placed on the ground at one side of the tent, and an open hunting bag containing the young placed on the opposite side, about ten feet away. On returning an hour later, I was amazed to find that all three of the young, so small they could crawl only with the utmost difficulty, and totally blind, had crossed the tent and managed to work their way through the paper to the skin of their mother, thus showing that the acute sense of smell in these foxes becomes of service to them at a surprisingly early age.

DESERT FOX (Vulpes macrotis and its subspecies)

A small fox, akin to the kit fox or swift of the western plains, frequents the arid cactus-grown desert region of the Southwest. It is found from the southern parts of New Mexico, Arizona, and California south into the adjacent parts of Mexico. The desert fox is a beautiful species, slender in form, and extraordinarily quick and graceful in its movements, but so generally nocturnal in habits as to be rarely seen by the desert traveler. On the rare occasions when one is encountered abroad by day, if it thinks itself unobserved by the traveler it usually flattens itself on the ground beside any small object which breaks the surface, and thus obscured will permit a horseman to ride within a few rods without moving. If the traveler indicates by any action that he has seen it, the fox darts away at extraordinary speed, running with a smooth, floating motion which seems as effortless as that of a drifting thistledown before a breeze.

The desert fox digs a burrow, with several entrances, in a small mound, or at times on an open flat, and there rears four or five young each year. Its main food consists of kangaroo rats, pocket mice, small ground-squirrels, and a variety of other small desert mammals. In early morning fox tracks, about the size of those of a house-cat, may be seen along sandy arroyos and similar places where these small carnivores have wandered in search of prey.

Like the kit, the desert fox has little of the sophisticated mental ability of the red fox and falls an easy prey to the trapper. It is nowhere numerous and occupies such a thinly inhabited region that there is little danger of its numbers greatly decreasing in the near future.

BADGER (Taxidea taxus and its subspecies)

The favorite home of the badger is on grassy, brush-grown plains, where there is an abundance of mice, pocket gophers, ground-squirrels, prairie-dogs, or other small mammals. There it wanders far and wide at night searching for the burrows of the small rodents, which are its chief prey. When its acute sense of smell announces that a burrow is occupied, it sets to work with sharp claws and powerful fore legs and digs down to the terrified inmate in an amazingly short time.

The trail of a badger for a single night is often marked by hole after hole, each with a mound of fresh earth containing the tracks of the marauder. As a consequence, if several of these animals are in the neighborhood, their burrows, 6 or 8 inches in diameter, soon become so numerous that it is dangerous to ride rapidly through their haunts on horseback.

Although a member of the weasel family, the badger is so slow-footed that when it is occasionally found abroad by day a man on foot can easily overtake it. When brought to bay, it charges man or dog and fights with such vicious power and desperation that nothing of its own size can overcome it. It appears to have a morose and savage nature, lacking the spice of vivacity or playfulness which appears in many of its relatives.

Although commonly found living by itself in a den, it is often found moving about by day in pairs, indicating the probability that it may mate permanently. In the northern part of its range it hibernates during winter, but in the south remains active throughout the year. Its shy and retiring character is evidenced by the little information we have concerning its family life. The badger is so destructive to rodents that its services are of great value to the farmer. Regardless of this, where encountered it is almost invariably killed. As a consequence, the increasing occupation of its territory must result in its steady decrease in numbers and final extermination.

The American badger is a close relative of the well-known badger occupying the British Isles and other northern parts of the Old World. It is a low, broad, short-legged, powerfully built animal of such wide distribution that it has developed several geographic races. Its range originally extended from about 58 degrees of latitude, on the Peace River, in Canada, south to the plains of Puebla, on the southern end of the Mexican table-land, and from Michigan, Kansas, and Texas west to the Pacific coast. It has now become extinct over much of this area and is everywhere greatly reduced in numbers.

It appears to thrive equally well on the plains of Alberta, in the open pine forests of the Sierra Nevada in California, and on the dry tropical lowlands at the southern end of the Peninsula of Lower California.

ARCTIC WOLF (Canis tundrarum)

In order to fit properly into a high northern environment, Arctic wolves have developed white coats, which they wear throughout the year. They are among the largest of their kind and have all the surpassing vigor needful for successful beasts of prey in the rigors of such a home. Nature is more than ordinarily hard on weaklings in the far North and only the fittest survive.

The range of the white wolves covers the treeless barren grounds bordering the Arctic coast of Alaska and Canada and extending thence across the Arctic islands to the north coast of Greenland beyond 83 degrees of latitude.

The short summer in the far North is the season of plenty, during which swarms of wild-fowl furnish a bountiful addition to the regular food supply. Young wolves are reared and the pack feeds fat, laying up a needed reserve strength for the coming season of darkness. When winter arrives lemmings and Arctic hares and an occasional white fox furnish an uncertain food supply for such insistent hunger as that of wolves, and larger game is a necessity.

In the northern part of their range they share with the other denizens of that land the months of continuous night. There, amid relentless storms and iron frosts, the trail, once found, must be held to the end. The chase is made in the gloom of continuous night and the white caribou or musk-ox herd is brought to bay, and by the law of the pack food is provided.

White wolves are the one dreaded foe Nature has given the musk-ox and the caribou in the northern wilds. The number of the wolves, as with other carnivores, varies with the abundance of their chief prey, and they will disappear automatically with the caribou and musk-oxen.

GRAY, OR TIMBER, WOLF (Canis nubilus and its relatives)

Large wolves, closely related to those of Europe and Siberia, once infested practically all of Arctic and temperate North America, excepting only the arid desert plains. This range extended from the remotest northern lands beyond 83 degrees of latitude south to the mountains about the Valley of Mexico.

When America was first colonized by white men, wolves were numerous everywhere in proportion to the great abundance of game animals. With the increased occupation of the continent and the destruction of most of its large game, wolves have entirely disappeared from large parts of their former domain. They still occur in varying numbers in the forest along our northern border from Michigan westward, and south along the Rocky Mountains and the Sierra Madre to Durango, Mexico, and also in all the Gulf States.

The variations in climate and other physical conditions within their range has resulted in the development of numerous geographic races, and perhaps of species, of wolves, which show marked differences in size and color. The white Arctic wolf, described on pages 421 and 424, is one of the most notable of these, but the gray wolf of the Rocky Mountain region and the eastern United States is the best known.

Since the dawn of history Old World wolves, when hunger pressed, have not hesitated to attack men, and in wild districts have become a fearful scourge. American wolves have rarely shown this fearlessness toward man, probably owing to the abundance of game before the advent of white men and to the general use of firearms among the pioneers. That wolves are extremely difficult to exterminate is shown by their persistence to the present day in parts of France and elsewhere in Europe. This is due both to their fecundity (they have from eight to twelve young), and to their keen intelligence, which they so often pit successfully against the wiles of their chief enemy—man.

Gray wolves appear to mate permanently, and in spring their young are born in natural dens among great rocks, or in a burrow dug for the purpose in a hillside. There both parents exercise the greatest vigilance for the protection of the young. The male kills and brings in game and stands guard in the neighborhood, while the mother devotes most of her time to the pups while they are very small. At other times of year packs made up of one or more pairs and their young hunt together with a mutual helpfulness in pursuing and bringing down their prey that shows a high order of intelligence. Wolves are in fact first cousins of the dog, whose mental ability is recognized by all.

During the existence of the great buffalo herds, packs of big gray “buffalo wolves” roamed the western plains, taking toll wherever it pleased them. Since these vast game herds have disappeared only a small fraction of the wolves have survived. There are enough, however, not only to commit great ravages among the deer and other game in northern Michigan and on the coastal islands of Alaska, but also to destroy much live stock in the Rocky Mountain region.

So serious have the losses in cattle and sheep on the ranges become that Congress has recently made large appropriations for the destruction of wolves and other predatory animals, and these disturbers of the peace will soon become much reduced in numbers. The necessity for action of this kind is shown by the recent capture in Colorado of a huge old dog wolf with a definite record of having killed about $3,000 worth of stock. Interesting as wolves are, filling their place in the wilderness, their habits bar them from being tolerated in civilized regions.

PLAINS COYOTE, OR PRAIRIE WOLF (Canis latrans)

Western North America is inhabited by a peculiar group of small wolves, known as coyotes, this being a Spanish corruption of the Aztec name coyotl. They range from northern Michigan, northern Alberta, and British Columbia south to Costa Rica, and from western Iowa and Texas to the Pacific coast. As a group they are animals of the open plains and sparsely wooded districts, ranging from sea-level to above timber-line on the highest mountains. They are most at home on the wide brushy or grassy plains of the western United States and the table-lands of Mexico.

Within their great area coyotes have developed several distinct species and a number of geographic races, distinguished by differences in size, color, and other characteristics. Some attain a size almost equaling that of the gray wolf, while others are much smaller.

They are less courageous and have less of the social instinct than gray wolves, and on the rare occasions when they hunt in packs they form, no doubt, a family party, including the young of the year. They appear to pair more or less permanently and commonly hunt in couples. The young, sometimes numbering as many as fourteen, are born in a burrow dug in a bank, or in a den among broken rocks and ledges. Young animals are readily tamed, and it is entirely probable that some of the dogs found by early explorers among western Indians may have descended from coyotes.

Coyotes are a familiar sight to travelers in the wildest parts of the West. Here and there one is seen trotting through the sagebrush or other scrubby growth, or stopping to gaze curiously at the intruder. If suddenly alarmed, they race away across the plains with amazing speed. At night their high-pitched, wailing howls voice the lonely spirit of waste places.

With the growth of settlement in the West and the steady decrease of large and small game, coyotes have become more and more destructive to poultry and all kinds of live stock. As a result, every man’s hand is against them, reinforced by gun, trap, and poison. Despite years of this persistent warfare, their acute intelligence, aided by their extraordinary fecundity, has enabled them to hold their own over a great part of their original range. Their depredations upon live stock have been so great that many millions of dollars have been paid in bounties for their destruction.

This method of control has proved so ineffective, however, that the Federal Government has engaged in the task of suppressing them, together with the other less numerous predatory animals of the West, and has placed about 300 hunters in the field for this purpose. The complete destruction of coyotes would, no doubt, upset the balance of nature in favor of rabbits, prairie-dogs, and other harmful rodents, and thus result in a very serious increase in the destruction of crops.

The coyote supplies much interest and local color to many dreary landscapes and has become a prominent figure in the literature of the West. There it is usually symbolic of shifty cunning and fleetness of foot. Whatever his faults, the coyote is an amusing and interesting beast, and it is hoped that the day of his complete disappearance from our wild life may be far in the future.

ARIZONA, OR MEARNS, COYOTE (Canis mearnsi)

The Arizona coyote is one of the smallest and at the same time the most handsomely colored of all its kind. Its home is limited to the arid deserts on both sides of the lower Colorado River, but mainly in southwestern Arizona and adjacent parts of Sonora. This is one of the hottest and most arid regions of the continent, and for coyotes successfully to hold their own there requires the exercise of all the acute intelligence for which they are noted. Instead of the winter blizzards and biting cold encountered in the home of the plains coyote, this southern species has to endure the furnacelike heat of summer, with occasional long periods of drought, when water-holes become dry, plant life becomes dormant, and a large part of the smaller mammal life perishes.

The Arizona coyote, like others of its kind, is omnivorous. In seasons of plenty, rabbits, kangaroo rats, pocket gophers, and many other desert rodents cost only the pleasant excitement of a short stalk. With the changing seasons the flesh diet is varied by the sugary mesquite beans, juicy cactus fruit, and other products of thorny desert plants. Wherever sufficient water is available for irrigation, small communities of Indians or Mexicans are to be found. About such centers many coyotes usually establish themselves and fatten on poultry, green corn, melons, and other fruits provided by the labor of man. Many of them also patrol the shores of the Gulf of California and feast upon the eggs of turtles and other spoils of the sea.

The arrival of men at a desert water-hole is quickly known among these alert foragers, and when the travelers arise at daybreak they are likely to see tell-tale tracks on the sand where one or two coyotes have walked in and out between their sleeping places and all about camp. Shortly afterward the campers, if inexperienced, may learn that bacon and other food are contraband and always confiscated by these dogs of the desert. These camp marauders often stand among the bushes only 75 or 100 yards away in the morning and watch the intruders with much curiosity until some hostile movement starts them off in rapid flight.

WHITE, OR ARCTIC, FOX (Alopex lagopus)

The Arctic fox, clothed in long, fluffy white fur, is an extremely handsome animal, about two-thirds the size of the common red fox. It is a circumpolar species, which in America ranges over all the barren grounds beyond the limit of trees, including the coastal belt of tundra from the Peninsula of Alaska to Bering Straits, the Arctic islands, and the frozen sea to beyond 83 degrees of latitude.

The blue fox of commerce is a color phase of this species, usually of sporadic occurrence, like the black phase of the red fox. The white fox makes its burrow either in a dry mound, under a large rock, or in the snow, where its young are brought forth and cared for with the devotion which appears to characterize all foxes.

How this small and delicately formed animal manages to sustain life under the rigorous winter conditions of the far north has always been a mystery to me. I have seen its tracks on the sea ice miles from shore. It regularly wanders far and wide over these desolate icy wastes, which can offer only the most remote chance for food. However, it appears to thrive, with other animal life, even where months of continuous night follow the long summer day.

The food of the Arctic fox includes nearly all species of the wild-fowl which each summer swarm into the far North to breed. There on the tundras congregate myriads of ducks, geese, and waders, while on the cliffs and rocky islands are countless gulls and other water birds. In winter they find lemmings and other northern mice, occasional Arctic hares, and ptarmigan, as well as fragments of prey left by Arctic wolves or polar bears. Now and then the carcass of a whale is stranded or frozen in the ice, furnishing an abundance of food, sometimes for a year or more, to the foxes which gather about it from a great distance.

Perhaps owing to its limited experience with man, the northern animal is much less suspicious than the southern red fox. During winter sledge trips in Alaska I frequently had two or three of them gather about my open camp on the coast, apparently fascinated by the little camp-fire of driftwood. They would sit about, near by in the snow, for an hour or two in the evening, every now and then uttering weak, husky barks like small dogs.

The summer of 1881, when we landed from the Corwin on Herald Island, northwest of Bering Straits, we found many white foxes living in burrows under large scattered rocks on the plateau summit. They had never seen men before and our presence excited their most intense interest and curiosity. One and sometimes two of them followed closely at my heels wherever I went, and when I stopped to make notes or look about, sat down and watched me with absurd gravity. Now and then one at a distance would mount a rock to get a better view of the stranger.

On returning to the ship, I remembered that my notebook had been left on a large rock over a fox den, on the island, and at once went back for it. I had been gone only a short time, but no trace of the book could be found on or about the rock, and it was evident that the owner of the den had confiscated it. Several other foxes sat about viewing my search with interest and when I left followed me to the edge of the island. A nearly grown young one kept on the Corwin was extraordinarily intelligent, inquisitive, and mischievous, and afforded all of us much amusement and occasional exasperation.

PRIBILOF BLUE FOX (Alopex lagopus pribilofensis)

The blue fox is a color phase of the Arctic white fox and may occur anywhere in the range of the typical animal. In fact, the blue phase bears the same relationship to the white that the black phase does to the red fox. In the Pribilof, or Fur Seal, Islands of Alaska, however, through the influence of favorable climatic conditions, assisted by artificial selection in weeding out white animals, the blue phase has become the resident form. Isolation on these islands has developed other characters also which, with the prevailing color, render the Pribilof animal a distinct geographic race of the white species. A blue fox is also the prevailing resident animal in Iceland.

In years when fur-seals were killed in considerable numbers on the Pribilofs their carcasses remained on the killing grounds as a never-failing store of food through the winter. During summer there is an abundance of nesting water-fowl, and throughout the year there are mice on land and the products of the sea along shore. As a result the foxes have thrived amazingly and several hundred skins have been produced a year. With the lessening number of seals now being killed on the islands and the resulting scarcity of winter food, the fate of the foxes is somewhat in doubt. The Pribilof skins are of high market value, bringing from $40 to $150 each in the London market.

Stock from the Pribilofs has been introduced on a number of the Aleutians and other Alaskan islands for fur-farming purposes. The value of these fur-bearers is so great that special effort should be made not only to keep up the stock on the islands, but still further to improve it.

The Pribilof foxes have from five to eleven young, which are usually born above ground and are later carried to the shelter of dens dug in the open or under the shelter of a rock. Foxes have become so accustomed to people on these islands that they have little fear and come about boldly to satisfy their curiosity or to seek for food. They often show an amusing interest in the doings of any one who invades the more remote parts of their domain. White animals born on the islands or coming in by chance when the pack ice touches there in winter are killed, whenever possible, in order to hold the blue strain true.