THE WOLVES. 131 
when they wish to conceal a part of their food or 
the droppings about their lairs. The parent wolves 
punish their whelps if they emit a scream of pain; 
they bite, maltreat, and drag them by the tail, till 
they have learned to bear pain in silence. Wolf- 
hunters commonly assert that the animal is weak in 
the loins, and when first put to speed, that his hind- 
quarters seem to waver; but when warmed, that he 
will run without halting from the district where he 
has been hunted, taking a direct line for some 
favourite cover, perhaps forty miles or more in dis- 
tance. On these occasions he will leap upon walls 
above eight feet high, cross rivers obliquely with 
the current, even if it be the Rhine, and never offer 
battle unless he be fairly turned: then he will en- 
deavour to cripple the opponent by hasty snaps at 
the fore-legs, and resume his route. The track of a 
wolf is readily distinguished from that of a dog by 
the two middle claws being close together, while in 
the dog they are separated; the marks, however, 
when the wolf is at speed, and the middle toes are 
separated, can be determined by the claws being 
deeper, and the impression more hairy ; the print is 
also longer and narrower, and the bail of the foot 
more prominent. 
Tnferior in wily resources to the fox, the wolf is 
nevertheless endowed with great sagacity. His 
powers of scent are very delicate, his hearing acute, 
and his habits always cautious. The European 
variety is naturally a beast of the woods; those of 
the arctic regions and of the steppes of Russia and 
