CANIS. 
tonjrues, or by Ijie substitution in Wales of 
a certain number of wolves’ heads for a 
particular amount of money in taxes. Some 
lands were also held on condition of the 
occupiers destroying yearly a certain num- 
ber of these dangerous animals. 
In America, wolves are reported to go 
in droves, and to hunt various animals with 
the most terrific and hideous howlings, not 
scrupling when urged by hunger, to attack 
even the bulFaloe itself. To allay their 
hunger, it is stated that they will swallow 
large quantities of mud. In Sweden the 
carcases of animals are purposely laid in 
their way, stuffed with tree moss, and 
pounded glass, which render the repast fatal 
to them. “ They are, hkp the dog, subject 
to madness, communicated also by bite, 
but generally coming on in winter rather 
than in summer. In the north of Europe 
they live much on seals, and extending their 
excursions far on the ice, when that is de- 
tached, in consequence of a change of wea- 
ther, from the land, they are carried off into 
the ocean, and express the sense of then- 
dreadful and insuperable danger, by the 
most bitter howlings of despair. 
There is no animal whose carnivorous 
appetite is stronger than that of the wolf, 
and he is endowed by nature with all the 
means of satisfying it, being strong, agile, 
subtle, and enabled not only to explore, 
but to seize and subdue his prey. 
By the perpetual war in which he is in- 
volved with man, however, he is often re- 
duced to extreme difficulties, and driven 
far into wilds and forests, where the means 
of satisfying his appetite are scarcely to be 
found : remoteness from human habitation, 
in proportion as it adds to his scarcity, em- 
barrasses his subsistence. The rtrgertcy of 
his wants drives him back to those dangers 
which he was eager to shun, and inspires 
him often with coirrage by no means na- 
tural to him, and rising to all the vehe- 
mence of fury and distraction. He will in 
these circumstances of pressure make no 
scruple of attacking women and children, 
and occasionally assault and devour men. 
The Paris gazette for 1764, states the ra- 
vages and devastation by one of these crea- 
tures, near Languedoc, to have compre- 
hended the destruction of no less than 
twenty persons. It will devour its own 
species as well as the human. It is re- 
markable for suspicion, for terror at the 
sound of a trumpet, for exquisite acuteness 
of smell, for its endurance of extreme (mid 
and hunger, for its fearfulness of a cord or 
rope drawn along the ground, and for leap- 
ing over fences rather than passing through 
doors or gates. When taken young, its 
savage character has, by assiduous edu- 
cation, been not merely greatly mitigated, 
but, in a few instances, completely subdued. 
The time of gestation in the wolf is 100 
days, being forty more than that of the dog, 
which may be considered as a radical diffe- 
rence between these species of animals. 
See Mammalia, Plate VI. fig. 2. 
C. hyaena, or the striped hyaena. These 
animals are generally about the size of a 
large dog, and abound in many parts of 
Asia and Africa. They have been almost 
universally believed to be untaraeable, but 
several decided instances to the contrary 
have occurred. Their manners, however, 
are particularly (intractable and ferocious, 
and truly indicated by that unremitt- 
ed gloom and malice expressed in their 
countenance. They inhabit, principally, 
rocks and caves, and, shunning the light of 
day, avail themselves of darkness to commit 
their depredations. They feed not only on 
prey which they have themselves killed, but 
putrid carcases supply them with a delicious 
banquet, and the bodies of the dead are 
often, with most persevering labour, torn 
up from their graves in churchyards, where 
they have some time been deposited, and 
devoured with the keenest relish. They 
follow the motions of contending armies, 
anticipating by the associations, furnished 
from experience, and which are formed in 
the inferior animals as well as in man, the 
feast to be supplied from human conflict arid 
carnage. When they are first put in mo- 
tion they appear, as is not uncommon with 
dogs, to labour under some fracture or dis- 
location in their hind legs. This, however, 
in a short time, totally vanishes. In Syria, 
and about Algiers, they live much, if not 
principally, on bulbous roots, in the choice 
of which they are uncommonly fastidious. 
In Barbary, the Moors will not hesitate to 
pull the hyaena by the ears in the day time, 
and, indeed, experience from it no attempt 
at injury ; they will even enter his cave with 
a torch, and throwing a blanket over him, 
hawl him out without any inconvenience. 
In the same country some small animals 
have been shut up with a hyaena fasting, 
during a whole day, and yet have been found 
alive and uninjureci.; but by night a young 
ass, a goat, and a fox, locked up with one, 
were destroyed, and, excepting some of 
the larger bones of the ass, completely de- 
voured before morning. 
