FOREST AND STREAM 
353 
Real Wolves and 
Editor Forest and Stream: 
The unsigned article called “Wolf Biography,” 
in the Natural History section of the May num¬ 
ber of Forest and Stream, raises three issues:, 
one of literary plagiarism, another of personal 
slander, and a third of deer anatomy. Only the 
last has any place in natural history or in a 
sportsman’s journal, but since the others are 
now involved they call for frank speaking. 
Your contributor gave a few quotations from 
a recent work on big game, which might indicate 
that the author has been helping himself to my 
observations. That is an old story. Many other 
writers have done the same thing in sporting 
magazines and books of natural history. The 
only interesting feature of the phenomenon is 
this: that among these sportsmen and naturalists 
who crib my material I recognize several who 
once joined in an outcry against certain of my 
observations which seemed to imply that the ani¬ 
mals have some rudimentary reasoning power; 
and the self-constituted authorities of that day 
were cocksure that the lower orders are wholly 
£ governed by instinct. Yesterday they followed 
the principle that "among wolves one must howl 
a little”; to-day they are silently appropriating 
the very stuff that occasioned the howling. 
This is sweet revenge to me, and sweet flat¬ 
tery, but it is not very sportsmanlike. Morally, 
it is wrong to use another man’s work without 
giving due credit, and practically, you can never 
“get away with it.” Plagiarism is always found 
out. 
Figure 1-Wedged Shaped Chest. 
Some Sportsmen 
The second issue is of slander, and slander is 
like a crab in that it lives by hiding, scoots either 
way with equal facility, has plenty of legs to 
run away with, and if you scotch it by nipping 
off its claws, it promptly grows another set. It 
dicated” article raised an issue over the record 
that a big wolf had killed a young bull caribou 
(not a “big bull,” as he misquotes) by biting into 
the chest; and that to meet the issue I said I 
“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.” Nothing of the kind was 
ever by me said or written or implied. The 
Figure 2—Showing How Near Heart is to Surface. 
was inevitable that the writer of your wolf arti¬ 
cle should reveal his hidden purpose in charac¬ 
teristic fashion. First, he professes to quote 
from a certain article, and straightway misquotes 
or garbles it. Not one of his citations is cor¬ 
rect; and he knows how to omit every inconve¬ 
nient sentence which might disprove what he has 
said or intends to say. Next, he makes positive 
statements in the professed interest of truth, 
and every single statement is loose, or erroneous 
or unmindful of the commandment which says, 
“Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy 
neighbor.” 
For example, he states that my wolf and cari¬ 
bou observation appeared “in a syndicated news¬ 
paper article.” The matter was never syndi¬ 
cated. If, without my knowledge, it ever ap-' 
peared in any newspaper, it was taken from a 
regularly published book, with exact specifica 
tions in the preface as to how the oDscrvations 
were made. He states, further, that this “syn¬ 
facts are: That when the person who then occu¬ 
pied our highest office demanded an affidavit of 
the fact in question, I sent him three affidavits 
from eye-witnesses in his own hunting territory, 
and offered to send others from Newfoundland, 
Labrador, Ontario, and Alaska, if he would ex¬ 
amine and acknowledge them in man fashion. 
Also I urged him to name any fair-minded nat¬ 
uralist to whom I might send the evidence and 
the witnesses; and I pledged myself in an open 
letter to withdraw my observation and never to 
publish another if his own appointed naturalist 
were not satisfied that the facts were as stated, 
and that wolves can and do kill deer and caribou 
in the exact manner described. Enough of this 
evidence has since been published, with signature 
and address of my witnesses, to convince any rea¬ 
sonable man who is interested in the truth of 
natural history rather than in the queer methods 
of natural historians. 
Again your writer, in order to discredit my 
MSTMEY 
