Allied to the bears is the large black and white "coon bear" (Æluropus), a rare, vegetable-feeding brute of eastern Tibet, which is a relic of the Pleistocene. Near it in structure is the queer Ælurus of the same region, which connects the bears with our raccoons and those other "little brothers of the bear," the kinkajous and coatis of the American tropics.
THE DOG FAMILY—WOLVES, FOXES AND JACKALS
Some of my readers may have asked themselves how the order of the families or other groups of mammals is determined—why the edentates follow the marsupials, the Rodentia come next, and so on. The reason is that their ancestors, so far as we know them as fossils, seem to have been related in a way that indicates such a succession of development in time. It is scarcely more than an indication, however, for although in describing them, or making a list, we must set the animals in a row, naturalists long ago ceased attempting to show that any linear arrangement of that kind represented the reality. The present variety among mammals (as in other classes) is the result of development along different lines from one or more points of beginning.
Throughout a long period in the early part of the Tertiary era there prevailed a class of beasts of prey, some as big as tigers, which, however, were by no means Carnivora, as we now know them, for their teeth in most cases were still of the insectivore type. These were the creodonts, of which I spoke a few pages back. They combined in their structure the features of all the different families of Carnivora, and it was not until there had developed from their stock a single family, Miacidæ, and the rest had died out, that the canine, or carnassial, teeth became prominent in their jaws, and nature found in this the right road to progress. To this anciently extinct family we may trace all the varieties of existing Carnivora. The oldest and most central stock appears to be that of the dog family (Canidæ).
The least of these are the jackals of Africa and Asia, small, active, noisy, reddish and variously marked animals like miniature wolves, which dwell in deserts and open districts, where they hide in dens during the day, and come out at night in search of mice and anything else they can get. They haunt the suburbs of towns, and do great service as scavengers, but also raid farms and villages, killing great numbers of poultry, lambs, and weakly sheep and goats by methods much like those of our American coyotes.
The coyote is a true wolf; and the wolves are connected with the jackals by a small intermediate species in India. Formerly the coyote ranged eastwardly throughout the prairie east of the Mississippi, but farmers gradually killed it off. On the sparsely settled plains, however, it survives from the Arctic Circle to the tropics in several species, and continues to maintain itself because its natural enemies have been killed off, and because it is extremely clever in dodging new perils. It is far more destructive to the ranchman's chickens, pigs, and lambs than even the big timber wolf, but, on the other hand, benefits the industry by aiding him in exterminating troublesome gophers, prairie dogs and rabbits.
The big gray wolf—the wolf par excellence—which our Western men usually call "timber" wolf, to distinguish it from the coyote (the wolf of the plains) is the most widely distributed of all beasts of prey, for despite the various names given it this fierce and capable animal is to be found throughout the northern zones of the globe, from Kamchatka, Japan, and northern India right around to Alaska. Where civilization prevails it has been killed off, yet lingers where mountains give it hiding places even in the oldest settled parts of Europe. In North America wolves abound in all the wilder parts of the West and North, contesting with skill and courage the effort of advancing civilization to get rid of them. This wolf, in its largest examples, such as the often pure white specimens of the Arctic coasts and islands (where it travels as far north as do the caribou and other game), may measure three and a half feet in length, exclusive of the bushy tail, and may weigh 150 pounds. Its color is typically rusty or yellowish gray above, more or less grizzled, while the underparts are whitish, and the tail is often tipped with black. These hues are paler in northern than in southern specimens, and in warm regions totally black races are known, one of which exists in Florida.
The wolf's mode of life is virtually that of the whole canine family, making allowances for differences in climate and circumstances. Choosing a convenient little cave among the rocks of a mountainside, or, when this is not handy, digging a burrow for themselves, a pair will establish a "den" in early summer, where presently six or eight whelps may be born; but usually only two or three survive babyhood. At this season small game is abundant, and the animals wandering around alone by day as well as by night, pick up a good living, grow fat and lazy, and are little to be feared save by the mothers of fawns or lambs. As the onset of winter fills the forests with snow, cold gales moan through the trees, and the long, dark nights enshroud an almost dead world, this peaceable disposition changes into a hungry ferocity and a force of craft and caution born of the direst need, which at last make the animal formidable to man himself. Yet actual attacks on men are much more rare than stories and traditions would lead one to think. It is at this season, when the rabbits and other small creatures are gone or hidden in hibernation, and large game must be depended on for food, that the wolves form themselves into small companies, or "packs," and assist one another. To this class of animals hunting is truly "the chase," for their method is, having found their quarry (in which the good nose for a trail and a keen hearing assist them), to keep it in sight and run it down. Having overtaken the quarry, a sideways leap enables them to thrust in the long canine, and drag on it—and the result is death unless the hunted creature is able to turn and fight off its foe with hoofs and horn.
The forests of southern Brazil harbor a long-legged, reddish species called "maned," which is a true wolf; and South America generally has several kinds of "fox dogs" (genus Lycalopex) that sufficiently make up for the absence of true wolves, as do jackals the lack of wolves in Africa and Arabia.
Foxes have long been regarded as constituting a separate genus under their Latin name Vulpes, but conservative naturalists now think they belong with the wolves in the genus Canis ("a dog"). The type is that of a smaller, more agile and delicate animal than a wolf or jackal, with a broader skull and sharper muzzle, larger ears, a longer, more bushy tail, and usually longer fur. Weaker than its wolfish relatives, though endowed with great swiftness, and used to playing the double rôle of hunter and hunted, its brain has been developed to a high degree to make up for its bodily deficiencies, and shows capacity for further development. Nevertheless the fox is not quite such a marvel of shrewdness as he is reputed to be, and fox hunters in Great Britain—under whose combination of care and chase his education has been more advanced than anywhere else—note much diversity in brain work among them.