The Wolf 333 



ever, cannot be the case, Hearne observes, because they 

 live apart during winter, and do not associate till towards 

 spring. "They always burrow under ground to bring 

 forth their young ; and it is natural to suppose that they 

 are very fierce at those times ; yet I have very frequently 

 seen even the Indians go to their dens, take out the young 

 ones and play with them. I never knew a northern Indian 

 to hurt one of them ; on the contrary, they always carefully 

 put them into the den again ; and I have sometimes seen 

 them paint the faces of the young wolves with vermilion 

 or red ochre." 



This statement of the friendliness existing between man 

 and these beasts is unique. James Morier in the moun- 

 tains of Armenia, Persia, and Asia Minor, Douglas Fresh- 

 field in the Central Caucasus, Atkinson, Prejevalsky, and 

 Gill in Northern Asia, Forsyth, Hunter, and Pollok in 

 India and Indo-China, and a host of witnesses in Europe 

 and America, have given evidence to their destructiveness 

 and to the enmity with which they are regarded. 



There never has been any question with respect to the 

 wolf's intelligence. His sagacity and cunning are of the 

 highest brute order ; and although, if one looks at a longi- 

 tudinal section of his brain, it appears poorly developed, 

 when compared with that of a dog, resembling, to use 

 Lockington's simile, a pear with the small end for- 

 wards, the latter animal is probably not inferior to the 

 former in natural faculty. "If we could subtract," says 

 Professor Romanes (" Animal Intelligence "), " from the 

 domestic dog all those influences arising from his prolonged 

 companionship with man, and at the same time intensify 



