260 
PASSIONAL ZOOLOGY. 
young animals already prove their intelligence, their knowledge, 
and strength. 
I have seen litters of wolves hunted six hours together in the 
same neighborhood, without one being dislodged, although the dogs 
gained sight of them continually. It was a perpetual change. 
When one had run half an hour and felt exhausted, another leaped 
in to take his place and leave his brother time to rest himself. Each 
took his turn before the formidable pack, while the poor mother des- 
perately cut and re-cut across the line of the hunt, trying to draw 
the hounds on her path, and divert it by a skillful turn far from 
the scene of her domestic affections. There are no wolves now in 
France who do not owe the preservation of their existence to some 
of these admirable acts of fraternal and maternal charity. Un- 
luckily for them, when the chase takes the turn just described, 
nothing is easier than to get a shot at the young wolf. It suffices 
for this to pierce through the brushwood and follow the dogs, the 
poor beast having a very limited space for its manoeuvres, necessa- 
rily passes sooner or later within range of the hunter, who is post- 
ed within the wood. 
I have more than once witnessed murders of this sort. I can- 
not even claim to have restricted myself to the part of an innocent 
spectator. The hunt of the young wolf is perhaps the most ani- 
mated of all running chases, the pack keeping almost always in 
sight. The chase of the grown wolf is, on tho contrary, the most 
troublesome and difficult of all. 
Government, which knows no other means of remedying the 
Climes engendered by pauperism than to double the force of its po- 
lice, this unintelligent government, which has knowm how to open 
a useful development to the brilliant faculties of the wolf, no more 
than to those of the robber or pirate, having then been forced to 
set a price on the ears of the young wolf, many country people 
have been allured by this prize, and have addicted themselves to 
the destruction of the species. The presence of a litter of young 
wolves is known in a neighborhood by the sheep bones strewn over 
the ground of the clearings where the young family sports about at 
night, coming out of its fortress ; but the carrying off of the litter 
is quite a dangerous operation. The mother is never very far from 
