"The three wolves meanwhile came to a junction of 2 logging roads. There they nosed around, scratched, and acted much as described above. Again the reddish wolf was most active and had its tail up.
"When the last 2 wolves came to this spot, they nosed around, ran back and forth, and 1 defecated. They then headed on a different branch of the trail than the first 3 had gone on just 10 minutes before.
"The first 3 wolves meanwhile were running along a logging road but eventually they circled and one other than the reddish one headed across a swamp toward the last 2. Then the reddish one and the other followed this one, and they met the last 2 on a ridge. There was the usual tail wagging, then all headed off together in a new direction. They passed the first scent post again and there was some nosing by the reddish wolf but little hesitation.
"When they traveled, one wolf lagged behind by 150 yards. The wolf just ahead of it had its tail vertical part of the time, as did the reddish leader.
"Soon the pack came upon another area packed with wolf tracks on a pond. There they followed every little trail, nose to the ground, wagged tails, grouped together often, chased each other, rolled over, etc. for 6 minutes. The reddish animal had tail up most of the time.
"The wolves continued on, and we left them about 1 mile S.W. of the S.W. arm of Bald Eagle Lake [at 6:05 p.m.]."
Unfortunately it was not known whether the trails that the wolves were following were their own or those made by other wolves.
Significant aspects of the above observation are (1) the spirited initiative of the leader, (2) the amount of time spent in scratching, urinating, and defecating, (3) the decision of the last two wolves to take a different route from that of the first three even though their goal seemed to be to catch up to the first three, and (4) the fact that the scent posts were located at trail junctions. In the last regard, we often noted from the ground that wolves urinated at the junction of newly formed human trails heading perpendicularly from roads they were following.
Copulation in wolves was only observed once during our study, on February 19, 1969. Two members of a group of four were seen coupled for 2 minutes on Kekekabic Lake. On Isle Royale, which is at the same latitude, copulations were witnessed on February 21, 24 and 27 (Mech 1966a).