134 THE WOLVES. 



ately devour him. At the close of the appalling 

 famine which desolated India, now more than a 

 quarter of a century ago, the wolves, always numer- 

 ous and but little molested, had become so daring, 

 that in open day they prowled through the villages, 

 and became exclusively fond of human flesh. It 

 was necessary to hunt them down, and to take them 

 in traps and pitfalls. Many contrivances for this 

 purpose exist in India, and a vast number were 

 taken. It had often been observed in Europe, that 

 wolves when taken in a trap lost all their courage ; 

 and the same fact was likewise established in India, 

 where single men went down into the pitfalls and 

 bound several of them, without the least resistance. 

 After a foray, these animals separate again, accord- 

 ing to Buffon, as soon as they regain the woods ; 

 but in wild countries, and where they burrow, this 

 is not the case. Capt. "Williamson, in his Eastern 

 Field Sports, relates the manner of smoking them 

 out, and states that on one of these occasions a 

 number of trinkets once attached to native children 

 were dug out and recognised by the parents. 



Notwithstanding that numberless jackals and 

 pariah dogs, nay tigers, prowl about the British 

 cantonments m Northern India, wolves also roam 

 and even burrow occasionally under the buildings 

 of European occupants. We have been told by a 

 relative, that one night a servant in his family, 

 sleeping in the verandah with his head near the 

 outer lattice, a wolf thrust his jaws between the 

 bamboos, seized the young man by the head, and 



