344 Wild Beasts 



omitted to mention — but Godman has rectified the over- 

 sight — that wolves carry their natural cowardice to such 

 an extent, and are so exceedingly dubious concerning what 

 man may do, that a few pinches of powder scattered about 

 dead game, or an article of clothing left near it, — in short, 

 any evidence of the presence of a human being will pre- 

 vent them from approaching it. 



There are several ways of writing natural history, and 

 this is one of them. It would seem, nevertheless, that if 

 a plan could be adopted for looking upon the general or- 

 ganization of wild beasts as in a great measure determining 

 their characters, and for considering, if possible, anomalous 

 traits as most probably intimately connected with peculiar- 

 ities in their situation, we might no longer feel confounded 

 at finding that sentient creatures are not the same under 

 dissimilar circumstances. If brutes could be considered 

 to have some knowledge of themselves, to act like brutes 

 and to feel like them, without reference to any human 

 opinions whatever, forthcoming literature of this kind 

 would be benefited. 



In those parts of the world where the wolf comes in 

 contact with people not well prepared to receive him, his 

 attitude towards mankind is aggressive. In Eastern 

 Europe, for example, Austria, Hungary, Bohemia, and 

 through the Danubian states generally, wolves occupy 

 quite a distinguished position for dangerousness, and the 

 inhabitants regard them with any other feeling than that 

 of contempt. Captain Spencer (" Turkey, Russia, the 

 Black Sea, and Circassia "), while passing through that 

 vast forest which separates the more settled tracts of 



