122 WILD ANIMALS. 



In Hungary, wolves commit many depredations. According to 

 the Pester Lloyd, in January, 1880, a pack ,of tliem passed through 

 Jemesvar, and destroyed every animal which was not housed. The 

 same paper also gives an account of a melancholy accident to 

 a clergyman there. He was beset by a pack of wolves while 

 returning home in a sledge from a neighbouring town. The 

 driver made all possible speed to escape them, but at a turning 

 the sledge was ups6t, and the occupants thrown out. The animals 

 at once seized on the clergyman, and literally tore him to pieces, 

 before the eyes of the terrified driver. In one village a few wolves 

 came boldly at midday into the inn-yard and devoured an ass, and 

 at Szalouta they killed and ate a shepherd who was walking along 

 the road at night. 



Again, this last year (1885), we learn that the excessive coldness 

 of the winter and the heavy snowstorms that accompanied it, drove 

 herds of wolves from the Carpathian mountains into the cultivated 

 districts, where in some cases they spread terror among the people. 

 ' At Homonna, in North Hungary, a pack of these brutes entered 

 the village while the inhabitants were in church, and they could 

 not be driven away until a squadron of Uhlans were sent to the 

 assistance of the villagers, and attacked them with their swords 

 and carbines. 



An article in All the Year Round says : " Nor are wolves, while 

 in possession of every brutal vice, free from that of intoxication. 

 Henri de Criquelle, in a French work upon the " Natural History 

 of Le Morvan " (a district of France), tells us that " in the summer 

 the wolves, like the gipsies, have no fixed residence. They may 

 be met with in the stamding barley or oats, the vineyards, and 

 fields ; they sleep in the open country, and seldom seek the friendly 

 shelter of the forest, except during the scorching hours of the 

 day. Towards the end of August I have often met them in the 

 vineyards^ apparently half drunk, scarcely able to walk — in short, 

 quite unsteady on their legs, almost ploughing the ground up with 

 their noses and staring stupidly about them." He then proceeds to 

 narrate how he shot one in this condition, which could hardly stand 

 up : " The fact was he was quite drunk, although not disorderly." 



" This inclination in wolves for intemperate indulgence in the 



