636 THE DOG. 



else so many living forms could not enjoy the brief period 

 allotted to them for sensation and thought ; and even our own 

 species is ordained to be an instrument for depriving ani- 

 mals of life. The Wolf, indeed, is one of the most destruc- 

 tive beasts of prey which the northern hemisphere of the 

 world produces. No animal is gifted with such powers of 

 destruction as he. Even the victims of the tiger are trifling 

 in number when compared with those which are continually 

 sacrificed to that craving for food, which, in the "Wolf, no- 

 thing seems to satiate. But we must remember that but 

 for these wild and sanguinary dogs, other species would 

 multiply not less noxious, as the lynxes and other tribes of 

 felidae, which once occupied the same regions : and no other 

 creature seems to have been so well fitted as the Wolf, by 

 his combined powers of scent and speed, his strength, his 

 hardihood, and his matchless sagacity, to restrain within the 

 fitting limits his fellow carnivora. 



Fierce and indomitable as we esteem .the Wolf to be, yet 

 even in his rudest condition, we may discern the germ of 

 faculties and affections, which should save him from the ob- 

 loquy with which he is loaded. We have seen the fidelity 

 with which he assists his mate in rearing their common 

 young, the tenderness with which both parents provide for 

 the safety of their offspring amidst the mass of dangers 

 which surround them, and the courage with which they pro- 

 tect them. Even when the adult wolf is taken in a trap or 

 pitfall, and imprisoned in a cell, deprived of all the freedom 

 of action which he had till then enjoyed, and reduced to a 

 miserable captivity, in the midst of animals the most hate- 

 ful to him, we yet find him submitting himself like a spaniel 

 to his keepers, and manifesting an enduring attachment to 

 those who treat him with kindness. And not only is this 

 docility of temper shewn towards persons who tend and feed 

 him, and who thus acquire that kind of ascendancy which 

 the fiercest animals submit to, but it is manifested in the 

 case even of strangers only casually known to him. A she- 



