134 THE WOLVES. 
ately devour him. At the close of the appalling 
famine which desolated India, now more than a 
quarter of a century ago, the wolves, always numer- 
ous and but little molested, had become so daring, 
that in open day they prowled through the villages, 
and became exclusively fond of human flesh. It 
was necessary to hunt them down, and to take them 
in traps and pitfalls. Many contrivances for this 
purpose exist in India, and a vast number were 
taken. It had often been observed in Europe, that 
wolves when taken in a trap lost all their courage ; 
and the same fact was likewise established in India, 
where single men went down into the pitfalls and 
bound several of them, without the least resistance. 
After a foray, these animals separate again, accord- 
ing to Buffon, as soon as they regain the woods; 
but in wild countries, and where they burrow, this 
is not the case. Capt. Williamson, in his Eastern 
Field Sports, relates the manner of smoking them 
out, and states that on one of these occasions a 
number of trinkets once attached to native children 
were dug out and recognised by the parents. 
Notwithstanding that numberless jackals and 
pariah dogs, nay tigers, prowl about the British 
cantonments in Northern India, wolves also roam 
and even burrow occasionally under the buildings 
of European occupants. We have been told by a 
relative, that one night a servant in his family, 
sleeping in the verandah with his head near the 
outer lattice, a wolf thrust his jaws between the 
bamboos, seized the young man by the head, and 
