118 WILD ANIMALS. 



V tlie tail, and teaching tliem to be mute by punishing them if they 

 \howl or utter a cry. 



^ They associate together in packs for hunting purposes, and 

 rely on their swiftness of foot to run down the deer and other 

 animals on which they prey, and, if in the neighbourhood of farms, 

 commit great ravages among the sheep-folds. They also fre- 

 quently attack calves, but the full-grown animals are generally 

 safe from their molestation. Their food depends to a great extent 

 upon the country they inhabit ; but they easily kill rats, hares, 

 foxes, badgers, roebuck, stag, reindeer, and elk, which they gene- 

 rally seize by the throat. Under certain circumstances they will 

 also kill and devour one of their own species. 



p When pressed by hunger, wolves readily attack man, and at 

 all times are dangerous animals to encounter. However, a traveller 

 can keep them at a distance by the display of something unusual ; 

 for the peculiarly cautious instinct they exhibit not only serves 

 their own purpose, but enables any one pursued by them to 

 easily avaO. himself of it and alarm them. They are not readily 

 trapped, for they are so crafty and sagacious that it is almost 

 impossible to allure them into any snare, and as one writer says, 

 they appear to understand the nature and purpose of a trap 

 almost as well as those by whom it is set. 



In the gardens of the Zoological Society are to be found repre- 

 j sentatives of the three principal varieties of these animals — viz., 

 I the common wolf (canis lupus), the American wolf (canis 

 I oGcidentalis), and the Japanese wolf (canis hodophylax). 



The common wolf is an inhabitant of Europe and Northern 

 Asia, extending from the arctic regions to the northern parts of 

 Africa and India. It is of a yellowish or tawny-gi^ey colour, having 

 black hairs interspersed over the coat, the under parts are white, 

 and the tail, although not bushy, is well developed ; but many 

 diversities appear in these animals suflBcient to identify the part 

 of the world from which they come. It is a powerfully-built beast, 

 and has a morose, determined aspect. When full grown it attains 

 a length of fully four feet. Nearly every variety of the wolf bas 

 a black stripe in the front of the forelegs of the adult. 



The French wolf differs from the German in being somewhat 



