J78 THE WOLF. 



being learnt from records. " Their den was in a deep sandy 

 ravine under the Knock of Bre-Moray, a lofty mountain near 

 the source of the Burn of Newtown. Two brothers boldly 

 undertook to watch the old ones out, and to kill their cubs. 

 Having seen the parents quit their den in search of prey, one 

 of the men threw off his plaid, and armed with his dirk alone, 

 crawled in to dispatch the cubs. He had not been long in the 

 den when the wolves hastened back to the ravine. He found 

 little difficulty in killing the cubs j and he was in the act of 

 making his way out, when the entrance of the den was darkened, 

 and the she-wolf was upon him. He dispatched her with one 

 thrust of his dirk ; but he was nearly torn to pieces by the male 

 before he succeeded in killing him, although he fought in such a 

 narrow place and from behind the dead body of the female."* 



In Wales wolves abounded to so great an extent, that King 

 Edgar, with a view to their extirpation in that country, com- 

 manded the Welsh to produce three hundred wolves' heads 

 every year. This great number was furnished, but not without 

 considerable difficulty, and the incurring of much risk, for the 

 space of three years, that is to say until the king's death in 

 975. After his decease it seems that this exaction was dis- 

 continued, for the best of all reasons, because no wolves 

 remained in Wales at that time. 



More than four centuries had elapsed after the extermination 

 of wolves in England, before they were totally destroyed in 

 Ireland 5 which land was not rid of them until about the year 

 1710, when the last presentment for their destruction is said 

 to have been made in the county of Cork. 



Dr. W. Weissenborn makes the following interesting obser- 

 vations upon the ravages of the wolves which infest European 

 countries at the present time : 



" The wolf destroys every other creature it can master, and 



consumes during the year, on a moderate calculation, about 



thirty times its own weight of animal substances : though in 



cultivated countries the damage it does to the live stock makes 



* Abridged from An Account of the Moray Floods. 



