GLUTTON. 
415 
suit of fishes. But if it happens, that by !aog at- 
tention and keeping close, at last the elk or the 
rein-deer happens to pass that way, it at once darts 
down upon them, sticks its claws between their 
shoulders, and remains there unalterably firm. It 
is in vain that the large frighted animal increases 
its speed, or threatens with its blanching horns ; 
the glutton having taken possession of its post, 
nothing can drive it off ; ..its enormous prey drive's- 
rapidly along amongst the woods, rubs itself 
against the largest trees, and tears down the 
branches with its expanded horns ; but still its in- 
satiable foe sticks behind, eating its neck, and dig- 
ging its passage to the greatest blood-vessels that lie 
in that part. Travellers who wander through those 
deserts, often see pieces of the glutton's skin sticking 
to the trees against which it was rubbed by the deer. 
But the animal's voracity is greater than its feelings, 
and it never seises without bridging, down its prey. 
When, therefore, the deer, wounded and feeble 
with the loss- of blood, falls, the glutton is seen to 
make up for its former abstinence by its present 
voracity. As it is not possessed of a feast of this 
kind every day,- it resolves to lay in a store to servo? 
it for a good while to come. It is, indeed, amaz- 
ing how much one of these animals can eat at a 
time ! That which was seen by Mr. Klein, al- 
though without exercise or air, although taken 
from its native climate, and enjoying but an indif- 
ferent state of health, was yet seen to eat thirteen 
pounds of flesh every day, and yet remain unsatis- 
fied. We nmy, therefore, easily conceive how 
much more it must devour at once, after a long* 
fast, of a food of its own procuring, and io. a cli- 
mate most natural to its constitution. We are told, 
accordingly, that from being a lank, thin- animal, 
which it naturally is, it then gorges in such quan- 
tities, that its belly is distended, and its whole 
