RABIES. 451 



saw a wolf that appeared very sick, and so faint, that he 

 could hardly move along. It gave the farmer double courage, 

 who mended his pace, got up to him, and killed him. He 

 had the curiosity to open him and see what was the matter, 

 and he found his stomach filled with moss from the cliffs, 

 and birch tops." 



When the wolf is hungry, everything is game that 

 comes to his net. In the Gulf of Bothnia he often preys 

 on seals. When that sea is frozen over, or partially so, as is 

 generally the case soon after the turn of the year, he roams 

 its icy surface in search of the young of the grey seal, which 

 at that season breed amongst the hummocks in great 

 numbers ; and finding this an easy way of procuring suste- 

 nance, he remains on the ice until it breaks up in the spring. 

 It not unfrequently happens, however, that during storms, 

 large fields of ice, on which numbers of wolves are congre- 

 gated, break loose from the shore or the land-ice, in which 

 case, as soon as the beasts perceive their danger, but see 

 no possibility of escape, they rush to and fro, keeping 

 up the while a most woeful howling heard frequently 

 at a great distance until they are swallowed up by the 

 waves. 



The Scandinavian wolf, though subject to several diseases, 

 is happily, I believe, exempt from rabies. This is well ; for 

 were they liable to that horrid infliction, the consequences 

 would be dreadful from their numbers, and their being 

 so generally distributed throughout the peninsula. In 

 warmer climes, as known, the destruction caused by this 

 animal when the fatal malady is at work within him, is awful 

 to contemplate. 



" A mad wolf in the vicinity of Hue-au-Gal in France," 



G G 2 



