SPEED AND SAGACITY OF THE WOLF. 267 
The dog is subject, like the wolf, to madness ; the dog bites more 
children and kills more sheep every year than the wolf. 
Left to himself he is hardly less formidable than the wolf, to the 
whole neighborhood. 
Does this prevent the dog from being the most precious of all 
the friends of man, and the first element of progress for human 
society. No, certainly : well then, if the question be between the 
dog and the wolf, there is only that of a different education ; and 
do not condemn the wolf without knowing what there is good as 
well as bad in his real character. 
The coolness, intelligence, and strength of the wolf shine in 
their full lustre in the chase, with a hundred dogs behind him. 
It may be stated as a general principle, that the grown wolf is 
never run down, and that it is absolutely necessary to recur to 
the aid of your gun when you want to make an end of him. 
There are wolf-hunters who have hunted wolves for fifty years, 
and who confess never to have taken one by the speed of their 
dogs. As to the race of w^olf greyhounds employed in Russia 
and Poland, it has long disappeared. 
Each episode of the wolf hunt presents its special difficulties. 
It is first a troublesome business to determine his present cover, 
and this known, to find out whether he is on foot, or in his lair. 
Returning very late to his lair, the wolf is still on foot half the 
time when the game-keeper explores the wood. It is this which 
renders the operation so difficult. The animal has in fact an 
exquisite tact in recognizing the approach of the enemy. You 
have just now seen this wolf follow an army of peasants returning 
from market ; he has even been so imprudent as to seat himself 
fifty steps from the band, and observe it defiling without disqui- 
eting himself at the noise of the dogs. It is because he knew 
perfectly well that he had nothing to fear from this inoffensive 
crowd. Now see a hunter, accompanied by a single sleuthhound ; 
the dog has discovered the wolf’s entrance into the brushwood, 
but in his ardor he has permitted a slight nasal sound to escape 
him. Now this is enough for the wolf, who has been listening 
three hundred paces off in the thick tangled brush, and who pru- 
dently thinks fit to decamp, and get some four or five miles dis- 
tant as fast as his legs will carry him. 
