, I will
borrow a page of Ross Cox, who, having had an opportunity of meeting it,
gives a very good description of its manners and ways of living. Yet as
this traveller does not describe the animal itself, I will add, that the
general colour of the prairie wolf is grey mixed with black, the ears
are round and straight, it is about forty inches long, and possesses the
sagacity and cunning of the fox.

"The prairie wolves," says Cox, "are much smaller than those which
inhabit the woods. They generally travel together in numbers, and a
solitary one is seldom met with. Two or three of us have often pursued
from fifty to one hundred, driving them before us as quickly as our
horses could charge.

"Their skirts are of no value, and we do not therefore waste much powder
and ball in shooting them. The Indians, who are obliged to pay dear for
their ammunition, are equally careful not to throw it away on objects
that bring no remunerating value. The natural consequence is, that the
wolves are allowed to multiply; and some parts of the country are
completely overrun by them. The Indians catch numbers of them in traps,
which they set in the vicinity of those places where their tame horses
are sent to graze. The traps are merely excavations covered over with
slight switches and hay, and baited with meat, etcetera, into which the
wolves fall, and being unable to extricate themselves, they perish by
famine or the knife of the Indian. These destructive animals annually
destroy numbers of horses, particularly during the winter season, when
the latter get entangled in the snow, in which situation they become an
easy prey to their light-footed pursuers, ten or fifteen of which will
often fasten on one animal, and with their long fangs in a few minutes
separate the head from the body. If, however, the horses are not
prevented from using their legs, they sometimes punish the enemy
severely; as an instance of this, I saw one morning the bodies of two of
our horses which had been killed the night before, and around were lying
eight dead and maimed wolves; some with their brains scattered about,
and others with their limbs and ribs broken by the hoofs of the furious
animals in their vain attempts to escape from their sanguinary
assailants."

Although the wolves of America are the most daring of all the beasts of
prey on that continent, they are by no means so courageous or ferocious
as those of Europe, particularly in Spain or the s