WILD ANIMALS. 



CHAPTER XL. 



"Triste lupus stabulis." 



THE most remarkable of the larger wild quadrupeds 

 are the boar, lynx, wolf, and chamois. The Boar is 

 still hunted in the Esterel. Within the memory of 

 persons now living, crops were devastated by this 

 animal above the village of Clans, in the Tine'e valley. 

 I can remember a boar, I suppose the last one, being 

 killed in the Var swamps. 



Two Lynxes have been shot, of late years, near 

 St. Martin Vesubia. One was attempting to make 

 off with a hide from the outskirts of the village, when 

 a peasant brought him down. " II laissa la peau," as 

 the saying is. The other was killed by a chamois- 

 hunter. I was offered the skin for a few francs. The 

 lynx is particularly hated by the shepherds, for he is 

 said to destroy more sheep than he can eat. They 

 call him " the blood-sucking wolf." 



Wolves are still abundant : but in Summer they 

 retire to the inaccessible snowy summits. Of late 

 years they have been driven backwards farther from 

 the coast. I can very well remember when the post- 

 man dared not venture, at certain times of the year, up 

 the Vesubia valley, beyond the village of Lantosca, 

 that is, a little over twenty -five miles north 0f Nice. 



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