CANIS LUPUS. 5 



when taken young ; and even when not caught till fully adult may be 

 tamed, so as to live with dogs and learn from them to bark. 



Wolves frequent both forests and open country, and they may be 

 met with by day as well as by night, either singly, in pairs, or in packs. 

 It is especially in winter time that they herd together for predatory 

 purposes, to the great danger of solitary travellers. In 1875 one 

 hundred and sixty-one persons fell victims to wolves in Russia, and 

 the damage to cattle in 1873 was estimated at seven and a half millions 

 of roubles. Wolves destroy horses and cattle by combined attacks, but 

 will singly destroy sheep, goats, or children. They greedily devour 

 birds, and will eat mice, frogs, or almost any small animals. They will 

 also feed on carrion, and are said to even seek nourishment from buds 

 and lichens. 



The voice of the wolf is mainly a loud howl, but, as above remarked, 

 wolves will learn in confinement to bark, if they hear dogs do so. 



The males fight together in the month of January, and the successful 

 combatant who has thus obtained a female, remains with her till the 

 young are advanced in growth. Gestation lasts 63 days, and from three 

 to nine cubs may be born. The young are suckled for two months, but 

 at the end of the first begin to eat half-digested meat thrown up by 

 the mother for them. She makes her nest in a burrow, small cave, or 

 dense thicket, often furnishing it with moss as well as the hairs of her 

 coat, which she sheds about that time. 



In November or December the cubs quit their parents, but may keep 

 together for another six or eight months or longer. They become full- 

 grown the third year after their birth, and live from twelve to fifteen 

 years. 



The European Wolf may be considered as a survivor of a group of 

 ferocious beasts of prey the cave-bear, the cave-hyrena, &c., with which 

 animals prehistoric man had to contend. It still exists in the wilder 

 or more mountainous parts of France, Belgium, and all other European 

 countries except Central and Northern Germany. It is very abundant 

 in many parts of Russia *. 



* For details as to its distribution in Russia, see the ' Zoologische Garten,' xxiv. 

 Jahrgang (1883), p. 91. 



