THE WOLVES. 131 



when they wish to conceal a part of their food or 

 the droppings about their lairs. The parent wolves 

 punish their whelps if they emit a scream of pain ; 

 they bite, maltreat, and drag them by the tail, till 

 they have learned to bear pain in silence. Wolf- 

 hunters commonly assert that the animal is weak in 

 the loins, and when first put to speed, that his hind- 

 quarters seem to waver ; but when warmed, that he 

 will run wdthout halting from the district where he 

 has been hunted, taking a direct line for some 

 favourite cover, perhaps forty miles or more in dis- 

 tance. On these occasions he will leap upon walls 

 above eight feet high, cross rivers obliquely with 

 the current, even if it be the Rhine, and never offer 

 battle unless he be fairly turned : then he will en- 

 deavour to cripple the opponent by hasty snaps at 

 the fore-legs, and resume his route. The track of a 

 wolf is readily distinguished from that of a dog by 

 the two middle claws being close together, while in 

 the dog they are separated; the marks, however, 

 when the wolf is at speed, and the middle toes are 

 separated, can be determined by the claws being 

 deeper, and the impression more hairy ; the print is 

 also longer and narrower, and the ball of the foot 

 more prominent. 



Inferior in wily resources to the fox, the wolf is 

 nevertheless endowed with great sagacity. His 

 powers of scent are very delicate, his hearing acute, 

 and his habits always cautious. The European 

 variety is naturally a beast of the woods ; those of 

 the arctic regions and of the steppes of Russia and 



