HAMLYN'S MENAGERIE MAGAZINE. 
THE STATUS OF THE WOLVES 
IN FRANCE. 
By Pierre Amedee Pichot. 
As a sequel to what the Menagerie Magazine 
has published concerning wolves, it may be inter- 
esting to know how many of those carnivora have 
been killed during the last few years in France. 
A near estimation of their numbers can be derived 
from the bounties which are granted every year 
by the Authorities for each head of wolf destroyed 
by gun, trap or poison. The premiumsi are rated : 
£8 for a wolf having assailed some human being; 
£3 for a she-wolf in pup; £2 for a full-grown wolf 
or barren female; and 16/- for a cub. 
It is a long time since any man-eaters have 
been reported, and premiums paid accordingly. I 
find nine in 1883; one in 1884; two in 1887; one 
in 1888; and one in 189G. The highest returns 
have been 1,316 wolves killed in 1883, and 1,039' 
in 1884. From that time the number has been 
progressively decreasing to come down to next 
to nothing last year when the premiums were 
claimed for only eighteen animals as shown in 
the following list : — 
1900 
She Wolves 
in Pup. 
1 
Wolves and barren 
females. 
52 
Cubs 
62 
1901 
1 
64 
90 
1902 

41 
32 
1903 
1 
37 
61 
1904 
1 
31 
60 
1905 
3 
27 
63 
1906 
3 
36 
47 
1907 
2 
24 
40 
1908 
1 
20 
41 
1909 
1 
30 
37 
1910 

9 
9 
1911 
4 
16 
17 
1912 
3 
12 
6 
1913 

19 
23 
1914 
1 
9 
12 
making a total of one thousand and fourty-one 
wolves accounted for in the last period of fifteen 
years. The last two years' wolves were killed in 
the following Departments : — Chareate, Dor- 
dogne, Meurthe et Moselle, Vienne, Haute Vienne 
and Vosges, and I dare say the official bounties 
were not claimed for a certain number, but the 
fact is that wolves are no longer numerous enough 
to be the sole object of the pursuit of several 
special packs as during the first half of last 
century. May-be that after the war we shall have 
a revival of the wolfish population as it has always 
occurred after periods of fighting and invasions; 
the wild animals being troubled in their secluded 
resorts by the strifes of humanity are prone to 
seek the regions which have kept out of the tur- 
moil, and already in some of our forest tracts the 
wild boars are reported to have been migrating 
in large quantities from the North. The boars 
are generally followed by the wolves, wild pig 
being their favourite quarry when sheep folds are 
well guarded. 
Amongst the wolves reported as above, a 
certain number may have been hybrids. The 
cross with sheep dogs are pretty frequent, the 
she-wolf, when in season and deprived of her 
mate, not being very particular as to whom she is 
courted by. These hybrids are very dangerous, 
not being so> shy as the genuine animal, and com- 
mit great havocs in the flocks. Count le Couteulx 
de Canteleu has had three litters of the kind 
under his notice in Normandy which he hunted 
down, but they gave a poor chase, not being 
inclined to run, crouching before the hounds who 
did not like them and showing fight. 
Having tested the scenting qualities of the 
wolves and their staying powers, Count le Cou- 
teulx de Canteleu had infused wolf blood in his 
pack, and several of his hounds, by selective mat- 
ings, were seven-eights hound and one-eight wolf. 
These, at the opening of the Franco-German War 
in 1870 1 , being obliged to part with his pack, he 
sold to Mr. Waldron Hill, then master of otter 
hounds in E. Lothian. "They and their progeny," 
writes Sir Walter Gilbey in his work on "Hounds 
in Old Days," "were considered the finest hounds 
ever seen on the line of an otter. The great objec- 
tion to them was their ferocity though, while 
actually hunting, they were peculiarly amenable to 
discipline." 
THE FAUNA OF OLD BRITAIN. 
By Hugh S. Spencer, B.A. 
At a short distance above the spot where the 
River Kennet joins the Thames, the following dis- 
coveries, were made during the year 1881, to the 
writer's own knowledge. 
The ground is historic. Here it was thai the 
great invading army which had landed in East 
Anglia in the year 866 and conquered the 
North and Midlands, was attacked in 871 by the 
men of southern England under King Elhelred I. 
and his brother Alfred in a battle in which the 
Berkshiremen distinguished themselves, as they 
have so often done since. 
The finds were made during dredging opera- 
tions carried on in the bed of the river. They 
consisted of a great number of bones attributable 
to the furred and feathered inhabitants of our 
island in the far away past. 
The bones were mostly black in colour. This 
was due to the peaty soil in which they had lain 
