The Wolf 319 



but a great many accounts of actual observations upon 

 wolves, and has at the same time some personal knowl- 

 edge of these brutes, the foregoing will prove to be un- 

 satisfactory. When special traits, and especially those of 

 courage and enterprise, are examined in books, flat contra- 

 dictions begin to appear. Colonel Dodge (" Plains of the 

 Great West ") maintains that the gray wolf of America is 

 an arrant coward. Ross Cox (" Adventures on the Colum- 

 bia River") asserts that he is "very large and daring." 

 Nobody has ever denied that wolves are formidable crea- 

 tures which can be dangerous if they choose ; what their 

 annalists have done is to proceed upon the assumption 

 that they are exactly alike everywhere, and give the gen- 

 eral disposition and character of an entire race from a few 

 scattered specimens seen by themselves in some particular 

 localities. Under any circumstances it would be useless to 

 discuss the wolf's courage without having previously settled 

 what courage in a wolf is, and how it displays itself. Prin- 

 ciple and sentiment have nothing to do with it ; appetite 

 and passion are its sole incentives. To compare it, then, 

 with that of some savage warrior in whom a certain stan- 

 dard of action always exists, is unallowable. Yet this is 

 continually done, not openly and avowedly perhaps, but 

 evidently in effect. 



Audubon (" Quadrupeds of North America ") saw wolf- 

 traps in Kentucky. " Each pit was covered with a revolv- 

 ing platform of interlaced boughs and twigs, and attached 

 to a cross-piece of timber that served for an axle. On this 

 light platform, which was balanced by a heavy stick of 

 wood fastened to the under side, a large piece of putrid 



