No one can say why on the whole the wolf of
Scandinavia and northern Russia should be larger and more dangerous than
the average wolf of the Rocky Mountains, while between the bears of the
same regions the comparison must be exactly reversed.
The difference even among the wolves of different sections of our own
country is very notable. It may be true that the species as a whole
is rather weaker and less ferocious than the European wolf; but it is
certainly not true of the wolves of certain localities. The great timber
wolf of the central and northern chains of the Rockies and coast ranges
is in every way a more formidable creature than the buffalo wolf of the
plains, although they intergrade. The skins and skulls of the wolves
of north-western Montana and Washington which I have seen were quite as
large and showed quite as stout claws and teeth as the skins and skulls
of Russian and Scandinavian wolves, and I believe that these great
timber wolves are in every way as formidable as their Old World
kinsfolk.
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