How Animals Talk 



acts more intuitively and less rationally; but it 

 does not account for the amazing certainty of a 

 wounded wolf when separated from his pack. He 

 always does separate, by the way; not because the 

 others would eat him, for that is not wolf nature, 

 but because every stricken bird or beast seeks 

 instinctively to be alone and quiet while his hurt 

 is healing. I have followed with keen interest the 

 doings of one wounded wolf that hid for at least two 

 days and nights in a sheltered den, after which he 

 rose from his bed and went straight as a bee's 

 flight to where his pack had killed a buck and 

 left plenty of venison behind them. 



In this case it is possible to limit the time of the 

 wounded wolfs seclusion, because the limping 

 track that led from the den was but a few hours 

 old when I found it, and the only track leading 

 into the den was half obliterated by snow which 

 had fallen two nights previously. How many 

 devious miles the pack had traveled in the interim 

 would be hard to estimate. I crossed their hunt- 

 ing or roaming trails at widely separate points, and 

 once I surprised them in their day-bed ; but I never 

 found the limit of their great range. A few days 

 later that same limping wolf left another den of his, 

 under a windfall, and headed not for the buck, 

 which was now frozen stiff, but for another deer 

 which the same pack had killed in a different 



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