THE FORESTS AND SPORT OF SIBERIA. 151 



migrations, thins them sadly. The hare is certainly not important 

 among the beasts of the chase. 



Among the non-edible furred beasts of the forest the first place 

 may be given to the wolf, since it is most bitterly hated and most 

 generally hunted. For although it is said that the direct injury 

 which it does to man is not very considerable, or at any rate 

 not insufferable, he misses no opportunity of destroying it. It is 

 certain that in West Siberia wolves only exceptionally appear in 

 large packs, and that they even more rarely venture to attack man, 

 but it is equally certain that they do much damage to domestic 

 animals. This is very considerable when we take into account the 

 destruction caused by wolves among the herds of the nomads on the 

 steppes and the tundra. There is no possibility of computing the 

 numbers of wolves in the forest-zone. They are found everywhere 

 and yet nowhere; to-day they fall upon the herds of a village, where 

 there has been no trace of them for years, and to-morrow they 

 ravage the sheep folds somewhere else; they leave certain districts 

 suddenly, and establish themselves in them again just as unex- 

 pectedly; here they defy their persecutors, and there precautions 

 against them are almost superfluous. 



Broad, much-used highways and settlements rich in meadows 

 attract them, for on the former they find the carcasses of horses, and 

 by the latter they find an easy booty in the herds which wander 

 unhindered by any herdsman, and often stray far into the woods. 

 But they are not absent from those parts of the forest which lie 

 beyond the limits of traffic. Sometimes in broad daylight they are 

 seen singly or in small packs prowling near the settlements; by 

 night they not unfrequently pass through villages or even towns. 

 In a single night they destroy dozens of sheep, attack horses and 

 cattle also, and more rarely dogs (for which in other countries they 

 show a preference). The only animals which they avoid are the 

 courageous swine, for here and elsewhere these at once show fight, 

 and invariably get the best of it. 



Like the Russians, the Siberians hold to the superstition that the 

 she-wolf suckling young carefully avoids ravaging in the neighbour- 

 hood of her litter, but that if she be robbed of her whelps, she avenges 



