THE WOLVES. 'h4B 



wolves. Some nations of antiquity, as well as the 

 more recent noble tribes of Goths and Saxons, 

 claimed the names of wolves.* 



In the notices of wolves taken by ancient writers, 

 it is evident there is no small confusion ; because, 

 having no accurate system of fixed distinctions, 

 travelling being rare and drawings not in use, 

 authors were necessitated to adopt vulgar names, 

 which often applied to more than one species, and 

 thus mixed up the true wolf with wild dogs, jackals, 

 hyaenas, and even with lynxes. Copyists next con- 

 fused the question still more, until the modems, 

 without much knowledge of the fauna of Eastern 

 Europe and Western Asia, adapted names in such 

 a manner, that subsequent investigation tends to 

 show them wrong in by far the greater number of 

 instances, and renders a reconsideration of the an- 

 cient texts equally desirable and perplexing. But, 

 although within the last forty years much informa- 

 tion has been collected respecting the mammalia of 



* The Taricheutes or embalmers, and the priests of Lyco- 

 polis, in Egypt. The 



" Tertia post Idus nudos Aurora lupercos- 

 Aspicit 



of Ovid, relates to the priests of Pan at the Lupercalia. The 

 Blotmen, or sacrificers, of the Gothic nations, wore wolf-skin 

 wrappers in their naked and sanguinary ceremonies. The 

 second tribe in point of dignity among the Ostragoths (as we 

 gather from the oldest Teutonic poems) was that of the Wol- 

 fingen. The first among tlie Saxons was the Whoelf o? 

 Guelphic. 



