262 
PASSIONAL ZOOLOGY. 
ticed the principle of association, the secret of all power. It is he 
who has invented the running chase and the procedure of relays. 
There is no quadruped his match in the force of his hamstring. 
The wolves of North America live chiefly on the flesh of deer, 
which they run down in a few hours. If a wild boar, a stag, or a 
roebuck have been wounded by a shot in our forests, he soon falls 
a prey to the wolf. 
In Lorraine, the country of great forests, where the wild boar is 
still common, and where great destruction is made of them in the 
snow season ; it frequently happens that the hunters are obliged to 
abandon a wounded beast that night-fall prevents them from fol- 
lowing by its blood. Next morning, when they return to finish 
their work, they most commonly find the task accomplished and 
the beast three quarters devoured. 
The wolves of Lorraine have seemed to be singularly fond of 
wild boar’s flesh. It is rare not to meet with some in ambuscade 
in the neighborhood of the lair where the sow shelters her pigs. 
The sow, on her part, takes care to establish round her abode a 
respectable company of beasts. I know a town w^here three 
wolves came smelling up to the very door of a hunter’s house, to 
which a wdld boar, killed during the day, had been brought by 
dragging it over the snow for want of other means of conveyance. 
The wolf is rarely taken in snares, traps, or pitfalls. 
When taken in a trap he does not hesitate to cut off the im- 
prisoned paw. It is almost impossible to poison him, for the sus- 
picious beast scarcely ever attacks carcasses which have not first 
been gnawed into by dogs, so that you will be apt to destroy 
more dogs than wolves. He will not touch the body of a horse, 
cow, or sheep, left for him in the midst of the woods. He knows 
better than you the place designated by the local authorities as 
their Montfau^on. And he doubts lest it be with reference to 
him that you have infringed the municipal edict by creating, on 
your own responsibility, an addition to the official deposit of the 
offal. But if you wish the wolf to heed your bait, drag it through 
the woods and fields close home to your house, half bury it in a 
ditch by your orchard — try to convince the wolf that you have 
taken great pains to put the carcass in question out of the way 
