346 CLASS MAMMALIA. 



Frogs, Field-mice, and other of the smaller animals. In 

 large forests, where game is more abundant and the neigh- 

 bouring population thinner, the Wolf becomes stronger, and 

 bolder, and his frame exhibits more energy and elasticity. 

 During the winter he retires to the recesses of lofty woods, 

 in the neighbourhood of inhabited places ; in the summer 

 he keeps the open fields, concealed amid the ears of corn. 

 The females are in heat in the month of January. They 

 are immediately followed by all the Wolves in the neigh- 

 bourhood, who settle their pretensions by the most san" 

 guinary combats. The strongest, having driven away the 

 rest, attaches himself to the female, and never quits her 

 until the young are educated. Gestation continues a little 

 more than sixty days, during which period the mother is 

 busy in preparing a nest for her young, in some situation 

 best adapted for shelter and concealment. She furnishes 

 it with moss and with her own hairs, which she easily 

 plucks out for the purpose, as it is the moulting season. 

 She brings forth from three or four to eight or nine, ac- 

 cording to her age, and for the first days she never quits 

 them. The He-Wolf supplies her with food, and the 

 suckling lasts about two months, but the young Wolves 

 begin to eat at a month old. At first the parents only give 

 them half-digested meat, which they themselves disgorge ; 

 and during this time one of the two always remains to 

 guard the family. By degrees they feed them with fresh 

 meat, and lastly bring them small living animals. After 

 this, they make them join in the chase. About November 

 or December, the young ones occasionally remove from 

 their parents, and begin to live without them ; but they 

 still remain in habits of connexion from six to eight months. 

 In fact, it is only sexual necessities that finally divide them 

 altogether. Then they form another link, so that the 

 Wolves cannot with strict propriety be called solitary ani- 

 mals, for though they live not in troops like Dogs, yet they 



