23G 



VERTEBRATA. 



and helped himself whenever he could. Something, however, was generally left for him ; and he 

 became s " tame, that he stopped when the party stopped, and when any thing was killed, walked 

 round and round, licking his jaws in expectation of his share. No one ever molested him, and 

 therefore ho continued quite harmless. 



The Aouaka, ( '. l.jubattcs, of South America, is called the Red Wolf by some authors. It is a 

 great plunderer, but flies from man. It seems confined to the marshy districts of Paraguay, 

 along the Rio de la Plata. 



Prom the aarratives which are furnished respecting wolves, it would appear that the European 

 varieties are much more savage than our own. We are told that a woman, in Russia, accompa- 

 nie.l by three of her children, was one da\ in a sledge, when they were pursued by a number of 

 wolves. She put the horse to a gallop, and drove toward her home with the utmost speed. Sh< 





A WOMAN AND 1IEH CHILDREN PURSUED BV WOLVES. 



was not far from it ; but the ferocious animals gained upon her, and were upon the point of rush in 

 on to the sledge. For the preservation of her own life, and that of the remaining children, tli 

 poor frantic creature cast one of them to her blood-thirsty pursuers. This stopped their carec 

 for a moment; l>ut, after devouring the poor child, they renewed the pursuit, and a second tim 

 came up with the vehicle. The mother, driven to desperation, resorted to the same horribl 

 expedient, and threw another of her offspring to the ferocious assailants. The third child wi 

 also sacrificed in the same way, and soon after, the wretched being reached her home in sal 

 Ihi-e -he related v. hat, had happened, and endeavored to palliate her own conduct, by describin 

 the dreadful alternative to which she had been reduced. A peasant, however, who was amon 

 the bystanders, and heard the recital, took up an axe, and with one blow cleft her skull in tw- 

 Baying, at the same time, that "a mother who could thus sacrifice her children for the prcscn 

 tion of her own lite, was no longer fit to live." The man was committed to prison, but tl 

 emperor subsequently granted him a pardon. 



