328 Wild Beasts 



seen. Franklin, Back, and Parry have little to say about 

 them, and it is the same with many other travellers in their 

 northern haunts. Bush, Kennan, Cotteau, Seabohn, Col- 

 lins, Price, etc., have no information of any importance to 

 give. Even Dr. Richardson, the naturalist, passes them 

 by nearly unnoticed, and Rink (" Danish Greenland "), 

 in his collection of the " Tales and Traditions of the 

 Eskimo," is silent on this subject. All these authors, 

 however, refer to other animals of the Arctic. Dr. 

 Harris (" Navigantium atque Itinerantium Bibliotheca ") 

 finds places for the bear, musk-ox, fox, wolverene, in his 

 immense repository of facts and impressions, but none 

 for the wolf. 



A somewhat comprehensive acquaintance with what 

 has been said concerning this creature, disposes the 

 writer to think, that the silence of explorers with 

 regard to a beast that would naturally attract atten- 

 tion, is explained by Captain Ross (" Voyage to Baffin's 

 Bay"). In his first expedition the wolf is not mentioned 

 among those animals described in the " Fauna of the Arc- 

 tic Highlands " ; but in his narrative of the " Second Voy- 

 age" he says, " the perpetual hunting of the natives seems 

 to prevent deer, together with those beasts of prey that 

 follow on their traces, from remaining in their vicinity." 

 Dr. John D. Godman (" American Natural History ") con- 

 tradicts Ross flatly, and asserts that " in the highest 

 northern latitudes . . . wolves are very numerous and 

 exceedingly audacious. They are generally to be found 

 at no great distance from the huts of Esquimaux, and fol- 

 low these people from place to place, being apparently 



