SPECIES AND VARIETIES. 635 



Russia, where the depredations committed are often exceed- 

 ingly great. By an official report made to the Russian Go- 

 vernment in 1822, it appears that in one year there were 

 killed in the province of Livonia, 1841 horses, 1807 oxen, 

 733 calves, 15,182 sheep, 726 lambs, 2545 goats, 183 kids, 

 4190 swine, 312 young pigs, 703 dogs, 673 geese, and 1243 

 other fowls. In England, wolves so abounded at one period as 

 to make it dangerous to pass through the woods after sunset 

 even for the shortest distance. In the ancient forests of 

 Kent, and in those surrounding London, they so swarmed 

 that no animal kept about human dwellings was safe ; and 

 one of the early cares of the Anglo-Saxon .princes was to 

 adopt public measures for their destruction, to which end 

 many remarkable laws and edicts are recorded. They con- 

 tinued, however, numerous during the reign of the Tudor 

 Princes, and were only exterminated at length by the gene- 

 ral use of fire-arms, and by the destruction of nearly all the 

 noble forests which once covered the country. The last wolf 

 of Scotland, we are informed, was killed in the wilds of Loch- 

 aber, by Sir Ewan Cameron of Lochiel, in the year 1680 ; 

 and the last for which the statutory recompense was claimed 

 in Ireland, was in 1710. 



From the terrible ravages committed by this creature, and 

 the indomitable ferocity which he manifests, he has been in 

 every age loaded, as it were, with malediction and reproach. 

 His treachery, malignity, and unsparing cruelty, have been 

 the subject of popular outcry, as well as the theme of learned 

 writings. His skulking gait, the odour which exudes from his 

 skin, the very expression of his countenance, have been com- 

 mented upon as something to make him loathed ; nay, he has 

 been held to be typical of the worst passions which we can 

 fancy to exist in our own species. But do we forget that this 

 animal is a member of that marvellous system of organized 

 forms of which we ourselves are but a part, and that faculties 

 have been assigned to him, which consist with the purposes 

 he has to fulfil \ Destruction keeps pace with existence, 



