604 The American Naturalist. [July, 
have run into the woods when’ young and managed to sur- 
vive. 
An instance recently occurred on Mount Pindus, in Thes- 
saly. The warden of the King’s forest on Mount Pindus was 
strolling up to a shepherd’s hut whilst on a shooting expedi- 
tion, to procure a drink of milk. He heard a rustling in the 
bushes, and was raising his gun when the shepherd called out 
to him not to shoot. He saw a naked creature in the form of 
a man running in front of him, sometimes on its feet, more 
often on all fours. It reached the hut and began eagerly suck- 
ing up the buttermilk out of a trough into which cheeses had 
been pressed. The shepherds said the child was a Wallach- 
ian by birth. His father died, and his mother, distributing 
her children amongst her neighbors, went back to her own 
country. This boy had escaped into the woods and had kept 
himself alive there for four years. In the summer he drank 
buttermilk daily and ‘lived well;’ in the winter he took shel- 
ter in the caves and eat herbs and roots. The warden, pitying 
the child, bade the shepherds catch and bind him witha rope 
and then took him to his home at Trikala. Here he fed and 
clothed his little Orson, and placed him with a person who 
endeavored to teach him to talk, or kept the child when 
possible under his own charge. But the boy has never learned 
to speak a word, though he imitates the voices of many wild 
creatures. The same inability to speak has been shown in 
the cases of other ‘wild’ children found in India, collected 
by Colonel Sleeman, the able officer who helped to suppress 
thuggism. In a district near the Goomtee River in the 
Province of Oude, wolves are never killed by the villagers 
from a fear of the ill-luck which their death might bring 
upon the village, and wolves consequently abound. A native 
trooper saw a large she-wolf leave her den, followed by three 
whelps and a little boy, all on their way to the river to 
drink. When chased by the trooper they all escaped to 
their den, the boy running on all-fours as fast as the young 
wolves. The whole party was dug out; the wolves were dug 
~ out and bolted; the boy was caught, bound with a rope, and 
1See Spectator, Jan. 9th, 1892. 
