the
naturalists. It is true they prey upon other animals found at times in
the same district; but wolves have been met with where not the slightest
traces of other living creatures could be seen!

There is no animal more generally distributed over the earth's surface
than the wolf. He exists in nearly every country, and most likely has
at one time existed in all. In America there are wolves in its three
zones. They are met with from Cape Horn to the farthest point northward
that man has reached. They are common in the tropical forests of Mexico
and South America. They range over the great prairies of the temperate
zones of both divisions of the continent, and in the colder regions of
the Hudson's Bay territory they are among the best known of wild
animals. They frequent the mountains, they gallop over the plains, they
skulk through the valleys, they dwell everywhere--everywhere the wolf
seems equally at home. In North America two very different kinds are
known. One is the "prairie" or "barking" wolf, which we have already
met with and described. The other species is the "common" or "large"
wolf; but it is not decided among naturalists that there are not several
distinct species of the latter. At all events, there are several
varieties of it--distinguished from each other in size, colour, and even
to some extent in form. The habits of all, however, appear to be
similar, and it is a question, whether any of these varieties be
_permanent_ or only _accidental_. Some of them, it is well-known, are
accidental--as wolves differing in colour have been found in the same
litter--but late explorers, of the countries around and beyond the Rocky
Mountains, have discovered one or two kinds that appear to be
specifically distinct from the common wolf of America--one of them, the
"dusky wolf," being much larger.

This last is said to resemble the wolf of Europe (the Pyrenean wolf,
_Canis lupus_) more than the other American wolves do--for there is a
considerable difference between the wolves of the two continents. Those
of the Northern regions of America have shorter ears, a broader snout
and forehead, and are of a stouter make, than the European wolves.
Their fur, too, is finer, denser, and longer; their tails more bushy and
fox-like; and their feet broader. The European wolf, on the contrary,
is characterised by a gaunt appearance, a pointed snout, long jaws, high
ears, long legs, and feet very narrow. It is possibl