EXTRACTS—NATIHAL HISTORY. 
43 
and snatch their prey from under the very eye of the farmer; and when 
the latter is absent with his dogs, the wolf is sometimes seen by the females 
lurking about in mid day. Our heroic females have sometimes shot them under 
such circumstances. The smell of burning assafaetida has a remarkable effect 
upon this animal. If a fire be made in the woods, and a portion of this drug- 
thrown into it, so as to saturate the atmosphere w r ith the odour, the wolves, if 
any are within the reach of the scent, immediately assemble round, howling in 
the most mournful manner; and such is the remarkable fascination under which 
the} r seem to labour, that they will often suffer themselves to be shot down rather 
than quit the spot. Of the very few instances of their attacking human beings 
of which we have heard, the follow ing may serve to give some idea of the habits : 
In very early times, a negro man w as passing in the night, in the lower part of 
Kentucky, from one settlement to another. The distance was several miles, and 
the country over which he travelled entirely unsettled. In the morning his car 
case w as found entirely stripped of flesh. Near it lay his axe covered with blood, 
and all around the bushes were beaten down, the ground trodden, and the num¬ 
ber of footmarks so great, as to show, that the unfortunate victim had fought 
long and manfully. On pursuing his track, it appeared that the w r olves had 
pursued him for a considerable distance, he had often turned upon them and 
driven them back. Several times they had attacked him, and been repelled as 
appeared by the blood and tracks. He had killed some of them before the final 
onset, and in the last conflict had destroyed several; his axe was his only weapon. 
The prairie-wolf is a smaller species, which takes its name from its habits of re¬ 
siding entirely upon the open plains. In size and appearance, this animal is 
midway between the w 7 olf and the fox, and in colour it resembles the latter, being 
of a very light red. It preys upon poultry, rabbits, young pigs, calves, &c. The 
. most friendly relations subsist between this animal and the common wolf, and 
they constantly hunt in packs together. I am well satisfied that the latter is the 
common jackall of Asia. These animals, although still numerous, and trouble¬ 
some to the farmer, are greatly decreased in number, and are no longer danger¬ 
ous to man. We know of no instances in late years of a human being having 
been attacked by them.— Featherstonehaughs Journal. 
Habits of the Strix Scops in Italy. —This owl, wdiieh in summer is very 
common in Itaty, is remarkable for the constancy and regularity with which it 
utters its peculiar note or cry. It does uot merely “ to the moon complain” oc¬ 
casionally, but keeps repeating its plaintive and monotonous cry, of hew,hew, 
(whence its common Florentine name of chill, pronounced almost exactly like 
the English letter Q) in the regular intervals of about two seconds, the live-long 
night; and until one is used to it, nothing can w ell be more w’earisome. Towards 
the end of April, 1830, one of these ow'ls established itself in the large Jardin 
Anglais, behind the house where we resided at Florence, and until our departure 
for Switzerland in the beginning of June, I recollect but one or two instances in 
w hich it was not constantly to be heard, as if in spite to the nightingales which 
abounded there, from nightfall to midnight (and probably much later,) whenever 
I chanced to be in the back part of the house, or took our friends to listen to it, 
and alw ays with precisely the same unwearied cry, and the intervals between each 
as regular as the ticking of a pendulum. This species of ow l, according to pro¬ 
fessor Savi, is the only Italian species which migrates, passing the winter in Af¬ 
rica and S. Asia, and the summer in the S. of Furope.— IF. Spence, Mag. A 7 . His. 
