340 



Wild Beasts 



much better explanation for abstention from violence than 

 that of natural cowardice. Wolves have far too much 

 sense not to know what they can gain with least exposure 

 to loss ; and no beast of prey, that is sane, and not driven 

 to desperation, ever proceeds upon any other principle than 

 this. Given the existence of mind, those accidents by which 

 mind is modified, and relative differences in degree among 

 its qualities, must also be admitted. Comparative stupidity, 

 evenness of temper, want of enterprise, tameness and 

 timidity, undoubtedly distinguish wolf and wolf, as they 

 do all carnivores. Still this would not account for the 

 conventional wolf, or explain the anomaly of its imaginary 

 character, or show why, or on what grounds, it is main- 

 tained that there should exist so great an incongruity in 

 nature as an animal unadjusted mentally and yet adapted 

 physically to a predatory life ; that has at the same time 

 the disposition of a tiger and the harmlessness of a lamb, 

 that lives by violence, yet shrinks from every struggle, 

 that maintains itself by the exercise of powers it must be 

 fully conscious of possessing, and is constantly debarred 

 from the results which it might attain through their exer- 

 cise by causeless apprehension. This is very nearly what 

 must be meant when a beast of prey is called a coward. 



Wolves stalk their prey, ambush it, either alone or in 

 collusion with others that drive the game, and they also 

 run it down. The jaw is very powerful and formidably 

 armed, and in proportion to its bulk this creature is 

 exceedingly strong. A wolf, though structurally carniv- 

 orous, will eat anything — fish, flesh, or fowl, fresh or 

 putrid, animal or vegetal. When he has gorged to the 



