MAMMALIA — WOLF. 143 



gives a remarkable instance, in which a wolf manifested for his master all 

 the devoted attachment of a dog. The gentleman who brought him up 

 from a puppy, and Avho was going to travel, presented him to the Paris 

 menagerie when he was full grown. For several weeks the wolf was 

 inconsolable ; but at length he contracted new attachments with those about 

 him, and seemed to have forgotten his former owner. At the end of eigh- 

 teen months, however, that owner returned, and, as soon as the wolf heard 

 the well known voice in the gardens of the menagerie, he displayed the 

 most violent joy, and, on being set at liberty, he hastened to his friend. An 

 absence of three years next took place, and the wolf was again disconsolate. 

 The master once more returned, and though, it being evening, the wolf's 

 den was shut up, yet the moment the tones of his friend met his ear, he 

 uttered the most anxious cries. On the door being opened, he darted 

 towards the long absent person, leaped upon his shoulders, licked his face, 

 and threatened to bite the keepers when they attempted to separate them. 

 When the man left him, he fell sick, rejected all food, was long on the verge 

 of death, and would thenceforth never suffer a stranger to approach him. 



Dogs, even of the dullest kinds, seek the company of other animals ; they 

 are naturally disposed to follow and accompany other creatures ; the wolf, 

 on the contrary, is the enemy of all society ; he does not even keep much 

 company with those of his kind. When they are seen in packs together, it is 

 not to be considered as a peaceful society, but a combination for war : they 

 testify their hostile intentions by their loud bowlings, and by their fierceness 

 discover a project for attacking some great animal, such as a stag or a bull, 

 or for destroying some formidable dog. The instant their military expedi- 

 tion is completed, their society is at an end ; they then part, and each 

 returns in silence to his solitary retreat. There is not even any strong 

 attachment between the male and female ; they seek each other only once 

 a year, and remain but a few days together. 



The difference in the duration of the pregnancy of the she wolf, who goes 

 with young above a hundred days, and the bitch, who does not go above 

 sixty, proves, that the wolf and the dog, so different in disposition, are still 

 more so in one of the principal functions of the animal economy. 



The wolf generally brings forth five or six, and sometimes even nine, at 

 a litter. The cubs are brought forth, like those of the bitch, with the eyes 

 closed. The dam suckles them for some weeks, and teaches them betimes 

 to eat flesh, which she prepares for them, by chewing it first herself. They 

 do not leave the den where they have been littered, till they are six weeks 

 or two months old. It is not, however, till they are about ten or twelve 

 months old, and till they have shed their first teeth and completed the new, 

 that the dam thinks them in a capacity to shift for themselves. Then, 

 when they have acquired arms from nature, and have learned industry and 

 courage from her example, she declines all future care of them, being again 

 engaged in bringing up a new progeny. These animals require two or 



