WOLF.] NATURAL HISTORY. 347 



and manes in the neck, and be so speckled, and have so 

 many diverse colours, that they lack no manner colour. 

 Wolves of Africa be nice and little. In Ind is a Wolf 

 that hath three rows of teeth above, and hath feet like a 

 lion, and face as a man, and tail as a scorpion, and his 

 voice is as it were a man's voice, and dreadful as a 

 trumpet ; and the beast is swift as an hart, and is right 

 fierce and cruel, and eateth men. Also Wolves, when they 

 flee, bear with them their whelps, and eat Origanum, and 

 chew it when they go out of their dens, and to whet and 

 sharp their teeth with. Also the Wolf loveth well to play 

 with a child, if he may take him, and slayeth him after- 

 ward, and eateth him at the last. If the Wolf be stoned, 

 he taketh heed of him that throweth the first stone, and if 

 that stone grieveth him, he will slay him, and if it grieveth 

 him not, and he may take him that throweth that stone, 

 he doth him not much harm, but some harm he doth him, 

 as it were in wrath, and leaveth him at last. And the 

 entrails of Wolves be right feeble, and take soon corruption, 

 when they be wounded, and the other deal of the body 

 suffereth many strokes, and hath great strength in the neck 

 and in the head. Also the Wolf desireth kindly to eat 

 fish, and eateth the filth that fishers throw out of their 

 nets ; and when he findeth nothing to eat that the fishers 

 leave, then he goeth to their nets, and breaketh and rendeth 

 them. The virtue and strength of Wolves is in the breast 

 and in the claws, and in the mouth, and least in the 

 hinder parts. And the Wolf may not bend his neck back- 

 ward in no month of the year, but in May alone, when 

 it thundereth ; and hath a cruel wariness, so that he taketh 

 no prey of meat nigh to the place where he nourisheth 

 his whelps, but he hunteth in places that be far thence. 

 And when he goeth by night for to take his prey, if it 

 happeth in any wise, that his foot maketh noise treading 

 upon any thing, then he chastiseth that foot with hard 

 biting. His eyes shine by night as lanthorns. And he 

 beareth in his tail a lock of hair that exciteth love, and 

 doth it away with his teeth when he dreadeth to be taken. 

 The Wolf dreadeth greatly stones, so that if a man take 

 two stones, and smite them together, the Wolf loseth bold- 

 ness and hardiness, and fleeth away, if the noise of the 

 stones cometh to his hearing. The Wolf eateth earth when 



