2 1 o Gleanings from the 



they are faid to have been feen, fo lately as Eliza- 

 beth's reign, in Dartmoor and Dean Foreft. An 

 amufing writer, who travelled through Sutherland- 

 fhire in 1650, fays: "Specially here never lack 

 wolves more than are expedient." For the hiftory 

 of the wolf in England, the reader may be re- 

 ferred to Harting's "Extinct Britifh Animals," 

 where much information on them is collected. 

 He decides that the animal became extinct in 

 England fometime in the reign of Henry VII. 

 In Scotland, wolves lingered until the end of the 

 feventeenth century, the laft being killed in 1743 ; 

 while the laft was killed in Ireland in 1770, at all 

 events after ij66. 1 An old belief averred that 

 wolves could not live in England. 



If proverbial lore, witchcraft, and fuperftitions 

 of many kinds claim the wolf as a ufeful animal, 

 the fabulift would be put to fore ftraits were 

 he deprived of its affiftance. jEfop and his imi- 

 tators generally draw the wolf as the imperfona- 

 tion of tyrannical greed ; as in the fable of " The 

 Wolf and the Lamb." Occafionally it is ufed to 

 teach mankind a moral lefton, as in that of the 

 boy who called " Wolf! wolf!" when there was no 

 wolf, and was finally torn in pieces for his deceit. 

 Once, however, the better part of the wolf its 

 wild and free nature is defervedly recognifed in the 

 fable of " The Wolf and Dog," when the latter tries 

 to cajole the ftarving wolf to give up its freedom: 



"Be complaifant, obliging, kind, 

 And leave the wolf for once behind.'* 



1 " Extinft Brit. Animals," p. 204. 



