258 
PASSIONAL ZOOLOGY. 
him to pieces, scattered his limbs, his head, and his bowels along 
the most frequented roads of the country to serve as warning to 
others. It was clear that not hunger but a simple desire of ven- 
geance had urged them to this murder, since they eat no part of 
their victim’s body. In my obituary tablets I have recorded the 
deaths of two setters thus ruefully executed. 
Thus also poachers lying concealed have often banded together 
to put some too vigilant forest keeper out of the way, and more 
than one zealous revenue officer has paid for his zeal by the ball 
of a smuggler. 
Observers worthy of faith, have assured me that they had known 
dogs to have profited by the liberty and leisure allowed by their 
masters, to contract alliance with the wolves of the neighborhood 
and to hunt on shares with them. I have also sometimes heard 
through the verdicts of the criminal police courts, that revenue 
officers had associated with contrabandists to divide the profits of 
the fraud. The history of beasts is a literal translation from the 
history of man, and placed in face of its text in the same volume. If 
the page of the brute is reddened less deeply with madness and 
blood, than that of man, perhaps it is because the brutes are yet 
ignorant of inheritance and mercenary marriages, and do not 
await the death of their parents to begin their own lives. 
The wolf, grateful toward nature, has taken great care to culti- 
vate the brilliant qualities that he has received from her. The she 
wolf, a model of maternal tenderness, teaches her little ones from 
the tenderest age, to detest the human species, and to distrust its 
snares. She tells them of the range and the report of fire-arms. 
She recommends them especially to respect the geese and lambs 
of the neighborhood, so as not to betray by an inconsiderate pro- 
cedure, the secret of their dwelling place. She even goes to seek 
for them afar off, sometimes two or three leagues, their daily nour- 
ishment ; a quarter of horse flesh, a sheep or a goat. 
Sometimes she is accompanied in her expeditions, by night and 
day, by an old he wolf, whose aid she obtains, and with whom 
she shares the booty. Wolves like robbers and pii ates observe 
among themselves the laws of discipline and strict equity. They 
are slaves of their word. No quarrels or lawsuits were ever seen 
