THE WOLF. 135 



of a wolf, and the first joint of his tail, carried in a golden vessel, 

 will make the bearer powerful, and glorious, and honourable and 

 rich and acceptable." 



BufEon says, " There is nothing good in the wolf, he has a base 

 look, a savage aspect, a terrible voice, an insupportable smell, a 

 nature brutal and ferocious, and a body so foul and unclean, that 

 no animal or reptile will touch his flesh. It is only a wolf that 

 can eat a wolf." 



This is somewhat of a libel, or at any rate a gross exaggeration 

 of the facts, but it being the French naturalist's opinion, the 

 following paragraph describing a wolf-hunter's feast, also ema- 

 nating from a Trench source, is amusing : — 



" A grand wolf-hunt was organized at Genis (Dordogne), by 

 M. Piston d'Aubonni, master of the wolf-hounds, and a party of 

 about twenty gentlemen on horseback and some four hundred 

 persons on foot, most of them armed with guns. They first pro- 

 ceeded to a wood which a litter of young wolves was known to 

 frequent. The hounds soon found one of them and killed it after 

 a short run. The next day not a wolf could be found anywhere, 

 but on the following morning several of them were discovered, 

 and one of them was shot. At a dinner given by one of the 

 sportsmen, he treated his friends to a dish of cutlets, which were 

 found rather tough and insipid. He afterwards told them that 

 what they had eaten, had been cut from the animal killed that 

 day. Most of the party seemed to think that the sport had been 

 carried rather too far." 



Wolves under kind treatment can be tamed, but are dangerous 

 pets even when reared carefully from cubs, for they instinctively 

 attack dogs and poultry when they get any liberty, and are apt to 

 turn dangerous to children, in fact, are unreliable. Mr. Bell 

 speaks of a wolf at the Zoological Gardens which Avould always 

 come to the front bars as soon as he, or any other person whom 

 she knew, approached : " she had pups too, and so eager, in fact, 

 was she that her little ones should share with her in the notice of 

 her friends, that she killed all of them in succession, by rubbing 

 them against the bars of her den, as she brought them forward to 

 be fondled." 



