29-4 WOLF. 
which they generally resort. He is naturally 
clownish and dastardly ; but want makes him in- 
genious, and necessity gives him courage. When 
pressed witli famine, he braves danger; he at- 
tacks those animals which are under the protec- 
tion of man, especially such as he can transport 
with ease^ as lambs, small dogs, and kids; and 
when successful in his bloody expeditions, he re- 
turns often to the charge^ till, being wounded, 
chaced, and persecuted by men and dogs^ he re- 
tires, during the day, to his den; but issues forth 
in the night, traverses the country^ roams about 
the cottages, kills all the animals which have 
been left without, digs the earth under the doors, 
enters with a dreadful ferocity, and puts every 
living creature to death before he chooses to de- 
part and carry oft' his prey. When these inroads 
happen to be fruitless, he returns to the woods, 
searches about with avidity^ follows the tract of 
wild beasts, and pursues them, in the hope that 
they may be stopped and pursued by some other 
Wolf, and that he may be a partaker in the spoil. 
In fine, when his hunger is extreme, he loses the 
idea of fear; he attacks women and children, and 
even sometimes darts upon men, till, becoming 
perfectly furious by excessive exertions^ he gene- 
rally falls a sacrifice to pure rage and distrac- 
tion." 
In the year 1764 an animal of this kind exert- 
ed peculiar ravages in some particular districts of 
Gevaudan in Languedoc^ and became the terror 
of the whole country. If the accounts then given 
