FOREST AND STREAM 
287 
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Fiction Becomes Fact in Wolf Biography 
M ANY readers of this paper will recall the 
“nature-faking” controversy of a few 
years ago. It came to a head when the 
Rev. Dr. W. J. Long asserted, in a syndicated 
newspaper article, that a timber wolf could, 
and frequently did, kill a big bull caribou 
“by biting it through the heart with a single 
snap.” Colonel Roosevelt, called upon to 
chastise the leader of the nature-fakirs, de¬ 
clared that a timber wolf could perform the 
feat of getting into the chest cavity of a caribou 
with a single snap about as easily as a bulldog 
could bite in two a grape-fruit placed in the mid¬ 
dle of a barrel of flour. With the issue joined, 
the leading naturalists and sportsmen supported 
the Colonel, while the reverend gentleman, with 
great heat, said he could get the affidavit of a 
man who knew of another man who had seen an 
ordinary wolf instantly kill a big horse by biting 
into the heart “with a single snap.” While this 
latter performance would have required an axe 
and well handled, too, it led to the examination 
of other wolf stories of the reverend doctor, one 
of which will now be repeated. In “Northern 
Trails” he begins the first page with the account 
of a trip to Newfoundland in a schooner, and on 
arriving at midnight the anchor was dropped in 
a quiet harbor of a small village. As the full 
moon arose “a great white wolf,” with its form 
outlined against the lunar background, sent “an 
unearthly howl rolling down the mountain,” while 
the native dogs, “sitting on their tails in a solemn 
circle,” their eyes glowing like “fox-fire,” an¬ 
swered back the call of their wild ancestor. In 
this particular wolf the author seemed to take a 
great interest, for he says (page 12) : “All over 
the Long Range of the northern peninsula I fol¬ 
lowed him, guided sometimes by a rumor a hun¬ 
ter’s story or a postman’s fright.” This method 
of hearsay tracking, and of a particular animal 
for weeks, while new to the world, was some¬ 
what affected by the fact that wolves were ex¬ 
tinct on the island at the time of the doctor’s 
visit. But this did not prevent a series of won¬ 
derful daylight adventures with a nocturnal and 
absent animal. His description of his first night 
in the far north was as follows: 
“All about us stretched the desolate wastes of 
sea and mountains over which silence and dark¬ 
ness brooded * * * not a light shone, not a sound 
or sign of life came from the little houses * * * 
when the moon arose I noticed the dogs flitting 
about like witches on the lonely shore; now sit¬ 
ting on their tails in a solemn circle, now howl¬ 
ing all together as if demented. I paddled ashore 
* * * one dog ran swiftly past * * * his eyes 
gleamed as fox-fire in the moonlight. A long 
interval of profound silence had passed and I 
could just make out the circle of dogs sitting on 
their tails * * * when an unearthly howl came 
rolling down the mountain Ooooooo-Ow-Wovu- 
Wow! * * * From far away an answer, an echo, 
perhaps of their wailing * * * came ululating over 
the deep. Then, silence again, vast and unnat¬ 
ural, settling over the gloomy land like a wind¬ 
ing-sheet. Suddenly my eye caught something 
moving swiftly on the crest of the mountain. A 
shadow with a slinking trot of a wolf gliding 
along the ridge between us and the moon * * * 
it stopped, leaped upon a big rock, turned a 
pointed nose up to the sky, sharp and clear, 
Ooooooo-Ow-Wow-Wow! the terrible howl of a 
great white wolf tumbled down on the husky 
dogs. 
“The wild wolf had called and the tame wolves 
awakened to answer.” 
On the page opposite the text is a drawing 
showing this wolf outlined against a full moon. 
This easy and very prompt method of begin¬ 
ning the study of wolves at the edge of a hamlet, 
swarming with dogs and human beings, like the 
rest of the story, was rudely declared by the na¬ 
tives and all visiting sportsmen to be pure fic¬ 
tion, notwithstanding the expressed declaration of 
the author, in the preface of his book, that every¬ 
thing narrated therein “is minutely true to fact 
and is based squarely upon my own observation 
and that of my Indians.’ But truth is stranger 
than fiction and imagination sometimes evolutes 
into reality. 
Tules Verne’s “Twenty Thousand Leagues Un¬ 
der the Sea,” finds a verification in the submarine 
craft of the present day, while the imaginary wolf 
of the Newfoundland peak finds a flesh and blood 
counterpart directly across the continent. For 
there on a British Columbia peak, adjoining the 
village of Telegraph Creek, a big wolf outlined 
against the moon sends an “unearthly howl 
“ululating” and “rolling down the mountain” to 
the dismay of its tame descendants, who, flitting 
about like “witches” or “sitting on their tails in a 
circle,” with eyes of “fox-fire,” re-enact, action 
by action, the Eastern story of the big white wolf. 
This is fully described in a book recently pub¬ 
lished, entitled “Big Game Fields of America. 
North and South,” wherein the second and later 
author graphically tells of the eventful opening of 
his first trip to the far north as follows, (pages 
282-4) : 
“It was close to midnight. For an hour the lit¬ 
tle hamlet had been slumbering; no sounds were 
falling, the hush of the night was complete. A 
thin, silvery light grew behind the shattered spurs 
until a young crescent moon sailed up. Several 
huskies lay in restless slumber, every now and 
then they would raise their heads and peer at me 
* * * while their eyes shone like fox-fire * * * 
and great silence reigned over all. Out of the 
blue throbbing night there ebbed a faint sound 
that came ululating over the distant hills like a 
voice of the wind * * * Three or four huskies 
trotted swiftly by as soundless as a darting 
shadow * * * I saw several of them flitting about 
like witches in the moonlight, now sitting on their 
tails in a solemn circle * * * A long interval of 
profound silence passed. Then suddenly * * * 
an unearthly howl came rolling down the moun¬ 
tain. It was a long wail of a great lone wolf. 
Then the huskies, which are but wolves of yes¬ 
terday, raised their muzzles to the sky and howled 
as if demented * * * Across the river came a long 
Woo-Ooo-Wow-Wow, and then a great black wolf 
leaped to the very top of a spur and stood mo¬ 
tionless * * * against the crisp stars and young 
moon. Sitting back on his haunches and point¬ 
ing his jaws to the moon, he rolled out a long 
appealing wail. 
“It was the strong and the free, calling to his 
degenerate captive kindred to be wild.” 
The pretended vision of the reverend fiction- 
ist in determining the color, size and the precise 
attitude and actions of a wolf at midnight, a mile 
or so away, is quite equaled by that of his vera¬ 
cious chronicler, while the very rare detection of 
the moon’s reflection (“fox-fire”) in the dogs’ 
eyes is, alsoj an interesting conversion of East¬ 
ern fancy into Western actuality. 
But, after all, the most striking feature in a 
wolf outlining itself against the moon, lies in the 
fact that the conjunction of the moon with a 
terrestrial sky-line varies each night in time and 
location, the impingement lasting but a few min¬ 
utes, so that the “great black wolf” had to arrive 
at a precise moment, on the highest portion of 
the ridge and at the exact point on the sky-line 
between the sportsman and the moon. Were the 
moon, wolf and spectator not in a direct and un¬ 
obscured line and at the right moment, the Lu¬ 
pine lunar eclipse could not be noticed. 
Aside from one wolf being white and the other 
black, the coincidence of fact with fiction is most 
striking. True, there is a slightly greater pro¬ 
portion of W’s in the ululating oo’s of the West¬ 
ern animal, but this is merely a geographic varia¬ 
tion. The phases of the moon were different, 
too, but that the new moon rises at midnight, as 
stated in the British Columbia story, is no more 
novel than that of a full moon rising at midnight, 
in the Eastern version, for each performs an un¬ 
paralleled feat at a time unnoted, or perhaps 
overlooked, in any lunar calendar. 
In concluding, it may be stated that the per¬ 
formance of the great black wolf, extraordinary 
as it may seem, was followed several weeks later 
by a wholesale duplication, for the owl-eyed au¬ 
thor of “Big Game Fields,” while sitting at his 
camp-fire witnesses a midnight parade of eight 
or more wolves passing successively in front of 
the moon, where “the leader, with his sensitive 
muzzle raised towards the sky, sounded the hunt 
call of his fellow kinsmen,” and the latter re- 
(Continued on page 295.) 
