398 
DOGS AND WOLVES. 
“ October 14, Saturday.—Mr. Wilson and Hickey re¬ 
ported last night a wolf at the meat-house. Now, the 
meat-house is a thing of too much worth to be left to 
casualty, and a wolf might incidentally add some fresh¬ 
ness of flavor to its contents. So I went out in all 
haste with the Marston rifle, but without my mittens 
and with only a single cartridge. The metal burnt my 
hands, as metal is apt to do at fifty degrees below 
the point of freezing; but I got a somewhat rapid 
shot. I hit- one of our dogs, a truant from Mor¬ 
ton’s team; luckily a flesh-wound only, for he is too 
good a beast to lose. I could have sworn he was a 
wolf.” 
There is so much of identical character between our 
Arctic dogs and wolves, that I am inclined to agree 
with Mr. Broderip, who in the “Zoological Recrea¬ 
tions ” assigns to them a family origin. The oblique 
position of the wolf’s eye is not uncommon among 
the dogs of my team. I have a slut, one of the tamest 
and most affectionate of the whole of them, who has 
the long legs, and compact body, and drooping tail, 
and wild, scared expression of the eye, which some 
naturalists have supposed to characterize the wolf 
alone. When domesticated early,—and it is easy to 
domesticate him,—the wolf follows and loves you like 
a dog. That they are fond of a loose foot proves 
nothing: many of our pack will run away for weeks 
into the wilderness of ice; yet they cannot be per¬ 
suaded when they come back to inhabit the kennel we 
have built for them only a hundred yards off. They 
