Damoh district, and accidentally heard that for months past a pair
of wolves had carried off a child from the centre of the village, in
broad daylight. No attempt whatever had been made to kill them, though
their haunts were perfectly well known, and lay not a quarter of a
mile from the town. A shapeless stone, representing the goddess Devi,
under a neighboring tree, had been daubed with vermilion instead, and
liberally propitiated with cocoanuts and rice. Their plan of attack was
uniform and simple. The village stood on the slope of a hill, at the
foot of which was the bed of a stream thickly fringed with grass and
bushes. The main street, where children were always at play, ran down
the slope of this hill, and while one of the wolves, that one which was
smaller than the other, concealed itself among some low bushes between
the village and the bottom of the declivity, the other would go round
to the top, and, watching for an opportunity, would race down through
the street, picking up a child by the way, and make off with it to
the thick cover in the nálá. At first the people used to pursue, and
sometimes made the marauder drop his prey; but finding, as they said,
that in this case the companion wolf usually succeeded in carrying off
another of their children in the confusion, while the first was so
injured as to be beyond recovery, they ended, like impassive Hindus
as they were, by just letting the wolves take away as many of their
offspring as they wanted.
“A child of a few years of age had thus been carried off the morning
of my arrival. It is scarcely credible that I could not at first get
enough beaters to drive the cover where these atrocious brutes were
gorging on their unholy meal. At last a few of those outcast helots,
who act as village drudges in these parts, were induced to take sticks
and accompany my horse keeper, with a hog spear, and my Sikh orderly,
with his sword, through the belt of grass, while I posted myself, with
a double rifle, behind a tree at the other end. In about five minutes
the pair walked leisurely out into the open space within twenty yards
of me. They were evidently mother and son; the latter about three parts
grown, with a reddish-yellow, well-furred coat, and plump appearance;
the mother, a lean and grizzled hag, with hideous pendant dugs, and
slaver dropping from her jaws. I gave her the benefit of my first
barrel, and she dropped with a shot through both shoulders. The whelp
started off, but the second barrel stopped him also, with a bullet in
the neck.”
Whenever wolves hunt in numbers, it is that one part may lie in ambush,
and the other drive the game, or because they design to assail enemies
they are well aware a few could not overcome. These packs only hold
together for a short time, and their formation depends upon the
accidental presence of several separate bands in the same vicinity
who are attracted by a common object, or follow each other’s motions
like carrion birds. This is what happens in the neighborhood of remote
and isolated settlements in Northern Europe, when human beings are
the game they pursue. Within Russian forests and those which lie near
lonely villages in Sweden, Norway, and Swedish-Lapland, small packs
form as darkness veils the weird, melancholy, desolate beauty of winter
landscapes. They meet irregularly, with the vague, fierce feelings
of an excited mob. The band is brought together by howlings, and it
sweeps outward into the open on an indefinite quest. Woe betide the
wolf who gives out during this wild gallop, or slips his shoulder on
the frozen crust. Desperation may enable him to conceal the accident
for a few strides, but discovery is certain, and he is instantly torn
to pieces and devoured. If a fresh trail be found, the pack follows it.
Human voices or the sound of sleigh-bells brings down the wolves like
a storm-driven cloud. Men often go out with drags fastened to sledges,
and as their purpose is simply to kill, and they are prepared, and do
not venture too far from the villages, these hunters generally succeed
in their undertaking. But not always; many a sleighing party of this
kind has not returned, neither men nor horses. Many a belated wayfarer
and party of travellers have never reached their journey’s end. A fleet
horse will for a time outrun wolves, even when by stealthy approaches
they have almost closed around him, and this the author knows from
experience; but it will not answer to go far, for in that case the
fugitive will certainly be caught.
Turning now to the most celebrated, as well as the largest and fiercest
member of this family, we find that the Scandinavian wolf is in many
places increasing in numbers, despite the various means which are
made use of for its destruction. L. Lloyd (“Scandinavian Adventures”)
ascribes this to immigration from Russia and Finland. However this may
be, recent writers still echo the lamentations of Olaus Magnus, and
of quaint old Bishop Pontappidan (“Natural History of Norway”) to the
effect that the country is overrun by them. Thus Von Grieff asserts
that in many localities “the wolf taxes the peasant higher than the
crown,” and J. A. Strom expresses himself to much the same effect.
A wolf will eat any sort of flesh, irrespective of its kind or
condition, and when pressed by hunger he consumes vegetable substances
also. Pontappidan says that one was killed whose “stomach was filled
with moss from the cliffs and birch tops.” Humboldt states that
famishing wolves swallow earth like the Otomac Indians on the Orinoco.
It is the common or gray wolf--the only one known in Scandinavia,
although at one time Nilsson attempted to erect its black variety,
_Canis lycaon_, into a species--which those authors referred to speak
of when deploring this creature’s destructiveness. Lloyd thinks that it
cannot be extirpated from the mountain and forest regions of Sweden and
Norway. The animal is prolific. A female, after ten weeks’ gestation,
brings forth from four to six, and even nine cubs. They are born in
burrows, inherit great constitutional vigor, and are well tended upon
the part of their parents. Whatever else may be denied the wolf, some
praise for domestic virtues cannot in fairness be withheld from him.
He hunts diligently and disinterestedly for the support of his mate and
young, and when these (which are at first nearly black and look like
foxes, except that they have not a white tip to their tails) are able
to travel, both parents carefully supervise their education. Various
diseases are prevalent among wolves, and many die of sickness; but if
it be true that hydrophobia is unknown among those of North-western
Europe, their exemption from a disorder which afflicts this species in
all cold, and even temperate climates elsewhere, must be looked upon as
an unexplained fact. During the rigorous and prolonged winters of high
latitudes large numbers starve to death. Men shoot, trap, and poison
them at every opportunity; they often kill one another, and when the
ice breaks up in the greater inlets of the north Atlantic and Baltic,
multitudes of wolves that have been hunting the young of seals upon
their frozen surfaces perish.
Buffon seems to have furnished the wolf’s character ready made for use
by subsequent writers, since these appear to have done little more
than copy or comment upon his text. “_Il est naturellement grossier
et poltron,” he says, “mais il devient ingénieux par besoin, et hardi
par necessité; pressé par la famine, il brave le danger_”--that is, it
will come out of the depths of forests, and attack domestic animals.
“_Enfin, lorsque le besoin est extrême, il s’expose à tout, attaque les
femmes et les enfans, se jette même quelquefois sur les hommes; devient
furieux par ces excés, qui finissent ordinairement par la rage et la
mort._”
Now if one reads, not all, for that would be impossible, but a
great many accounts of actual observations upon wolves, and has at
the same time some personal knowledge of these brutes, the foregoing
will prove to be unsatisfactory. When special traits, and especially
those of courage and enterprise, are examined in books, flat
contradictions begin to appear. Colonel Dodge (“Plains of the Great
West”) maintains that the gray wolf of America is an arrant coward.
Ross Cox (“Adventures on the Columbia River”) asserts that he is “very
large and daring.” Nobody has ever denied that wolves are formidable
creatures which can be dangerous if they choose; what their annalists
have done is to proceed upon the assumption that they are exactly
alike everywhere, and give the general disposition and character of
an entire race from a few scattered specimens seen by themselves
in some particular localities. Under any circumstances it would be
useless to discuss the wolf’s courage without having previously settled
what courage in a wolf is, and how it displays itself. Principle and
sentiment have nothing to do with it; appetite and passion are its
sole incentives. To compare it, then, with that of some savage warrior
in whom a certain standard of action always exists, is unallowable.
Yet this is continually done, not openly and avowedly perhaps, but
evidently in effect.
Audubon (“Quadrupeds of North America”) saw wolf-traps in Kentucky.
“Each pit was covered with a revolving platform of interlaced boughs
and twigs, and attached to a cross-piece of timber that served for an
axle. On this light platform, which was balanced by a heavy stick of
wood fastened to the under side, a large piece of putrid venison was
tied for a bait.” Visiting one of these pits in the morning, with its
constructor and his dogs, three wolves, “two black and one brindled,”
were found to have been caught. “They were lying flat on the earth,
with their ears close down to their heads, and their eyes indicating
fear more than anger.” It is said by Felix Oswald, (“Zoölogical
Sketches”) that pitfalls always cow animals. At all events, in this
case, the farmer, axe and knife in hand, descended and hamstrung them.
Audubon stood above with a gun and the dogs, to whom these helpless
creatures were thrown to be worried. None of the captives made any
resistance worth mentioning because they were such cowards! If a lion
of the Atlas, however, comes ramping down upon an Arab _douar_, leaps
over the fence of a cattle-pen, and finds himself at the bottom of
a trench, he meets death with the same resignation. But that is on
account of the dignity of his character. No mortal knows what either
animal thinks or feels, and, since there is no difference between their
demeanors, it would be quite as easy to make the death scene of the
wolf poetic, and probably fully as much in accordance with the truth.
What has been said of fortitude applies equally to other qualities. It
seems reasonable to allow wolves some part in deciding what enterprises
they shall undertake, which way an attack ought to be made, and whether
the risk of any adventure is likely to overbalance its advantages.
They are very well acquainted with the business which it falls to
their lot in life to transact, and since the days have gone when Greek
lycanthropes, German währ-wolves, and French loupgarous appeared among
mankind, not anybody is able to put himself in this animal’s place so
completely as to appreciate those motives by which it is actuated.
Wolves differ with their geographical position, with the peoples that
come in contact with them, and in virtue of individual peculiarities.
What has been done by them anywhere, might undoubtedly occur again if
the conditions remained unaltered. Dr. Henry Lansdell (“Russian Central
Asia”) knew of Tartars on the steppes who rode down the wolf and beat
it to death with their heavy whips. He likewise learned that shepherds
in the Caucasus protected their flocks by means of dogs. Yet his
native attendants, as he reports with some surprise, actually allowed
themselves to become alarmed at the threatened attack of a pack on the
road from Kabakli to Petro-Alexandrovsk.
T. W. Atkinson’s views (“Oriental and Western Siberia”) were not so
decided, and his experiences in these latitudes had been different. He
saw plenty of wolves in the valley of the Ouba, and they had followed
his party on the plains of Mongolia. Cossacks assured him (“Travels
in the Region of the Amoor”) that travellers upon the steppe were
often devoured, and bands of these grim beasts frequently gathered
about his camp by night. On one occasion while hunting he observed a
fine maral--the large stag of high altitudes in the Ac-tan, Ale-tan,
and Mus-tan regions--run into by three of these brutes. “The ravenous
beasts were tearing the noble creature to pieces while yet breathing,”
when two _bearcoots_--black Tartar eagles--sailed over the spot, and
one swooped. “The wolves caught sight of them in an instant ... and
stood on their defence.... In a few seconds the first _bearcoot_ struck
his prey; one talon was fixed on his back, the other on the upper part
of his neck, completely securing the head, while he tore out the liver
with his beak. The other eagle seized another wolf, and shortly both
were as lifeless as the animal they had hunted.”
This explorer, however, so far departed from the rule in such cases
made and provided, that he did not immediately generalize the character
of all the wolves in Asia from his observations of those two that
permitted themselves to be killed by a pair of birds. On the contrary,
when a pack followed his party in Mongolia, he was prepared to look
upon it as a serious matter. They were in camp, the weather was mild,
game abounded, and it was a beautiful night. “Before long we could
hear their feet beat upon the ground as they galloped towards us. In
a very short while the troop came up and gave a savage howl. The men
now placed some dry bushes on the fire (which had been allowed to sink
by the Kalmucks and Kalkas, lest its light should attract robbers),
and blew it up into a bright flame which sent its red glare far beyond
us, disclosing the wolves, their ears and tails erect, and their eyes
flashing fire. At this instant I gave the signal, and our volley was
poured in with deadly effect, for the horrible howling they set up
showed what mischief had been done. We did not move to collect our
game--that might be done in the morning. Our pieces were reloaded as
fast as possible, for the Kalmucks warned us that the wolves would
return. We could hear them snarling, and some of the wounded howling,
but they were too far away to risk a shot. The fire was let down, and
we remained perfectly quiet.
“We were not long left in ignorance of their intentions. Shortly there
was a great commotion among our horses, and we discovered that the
pack had divided and were stealing up to our animals on each side,
between us and the water. The Kalkas and Kalmucks rushed up to our
steeds, uttering loud shouts, and this drove the wolves back again. It
was now necessary to guard the horses on three sides, as we could hear
the savage brutes quite near. The men anticipated that they would make
a rush, cause the animals to break away, and then hunt them down. A
Cossack and Kalmuck turned to guard the approaches on each side, and I
remained watching at the front. The fire was relighted and kept in a
constant blaze by Kalkas adding small bushes, and this enabled us to
see as well as hear our savage enemies. Presently I discovered their
glaring eyeballs moving to and fro, nearer and nearer; then I could
distinguish their grizzly forms pushing each other on. At this moment
the rifles cracked to my right, and the fire sent up a bright blaze,
which enabled me to make sure of one fellow as he turned his side
towards me. I sent the second ball into the pack, and more than one
must have been wounded from the howling that came from this direction.
The other men had also fired, and I did not doubt with equal effect,
for it was certain that they would not throw a shot away. In a few
minutes the growling ceased, and all was still except the snorting
of some of the horses. Both Kalkas and Kalmucks assured me that the
wolves would make another attack, and said that no one must sleep on
his post.
“To increase our difficulty, we now had but few bushes left, and
none could be obtained near us; therefore it would only be by a most
vigilant watch that we could now save our horses. The night, too,
became very dark, and nothing could be seen at a short distance except
towards the lake, where any dark object might be observed against the
dim light that rested on the water. Sharp and keen eyes were peering
out in every direction, but no wolf was seen, nor sound heard. The
Kalkas said the wolves were waiting till all was still, and then they
would make a dash at the horses.
“We had been watching a long time without the slightest movement, when
two of the horses became uneasy, tugging at the thongs and snorting.
The clouds rolled off, the stars came forth and reflected more light
upon the lake. Presently howling was heard in the distance, and
Tchuck-a-boi declared that another pack of wolves was coming. When
they approached nearer, those that had been keeping guard over us so
quietly began to growl, and let us know that they were not far away. As
it was now deemed absolutely necessary to procure some bushes, four of
my men crept quietly along the shore of the lake, two being armed, and
in about ten minutes they returned, each of them having an armful of
fuel. The embers were rekindled, and material placed on them, ready to
be blown into a flame the moment it was needed. The sounds we heard in
the distance had ceased for some time, when suddenly there was a great
commotion. The other wolves had come up, and the growling and snarling
became furious. How much I wished for light, in order to witness the
battle that seemed likely to ensue. For a time there seemed to be
individual combats; but there was no general engagement, and soon all
became still as before. Again we waited, looking out for more than half
an hour, when the horses began pulling and plunging violently; but we
could see nothing. The men now blew up the embers, and in a few minutes
the bushes burst into a blaze, and then I saw a group of eight or ten
wolves within fifteen paces, and others beyond. In a moment I gave them
the contents of both barrels, the others fired at the same instant, and
the pack set up a frightful howl and scampered off.” Atkinson found
eight dead bodies next morning, and the bloody trails of many wounded
that had gone off.
How would this party have fared if instead of warm weather, and the
presence of a pack that merely desired to gratify their taste for horse
flesh, and showed their willingness to brave fire and rifle-balls to
this end, the steppe had been snowy and the animals starving? There
seems to be no more doubt that a considerable detachment of Russian
infantry was destroyed by wolves about fifty years ago in the passes of
the Ural Mountains, than there is that the dragoon by whom Wellington
sent his despatch after the battle of Albuera was eaten, together
with his horse. “Daring as the wolf was in olden times,” says Lloyd,
speaking of that found in Scandinavia, “he has lost nothing of his
audacity at the present day.” In proof of which he collects from
newspapers, parish registers, official reports, and the testimony of
eye-witnesses, a statement of the ravages of wolves among domestic
animals and human beings that almost equals those mediæval notices in
which their evil deeds have been recorded from one end of Europe to
the other. None of these, or rather, none the writer has met with,
rival that recital given by James Grant (“The Wild Beast of Gevaudan”).
French, Dutch, Belgian, and English journals, during 1765, were full of
those events of which a brief abstract is inserted, and their prolonged
occurrence finally came to be an affair of grave importance to the
government of France.
In that year a beast, not identified as a wolf until after its death,
created a reign of terror in the forest country of Provence and
Languedoc, devouring eighty people about Gevaudan. “_Qui a dévoré plus
que quatrevingt personnes dans le Gevaudan_,” says the official report.
A drawing (from description) was sent to the Intendant of Alençon,
and as this looked more like a hyena than anything else, it was given
out that one of these brutes was at large. The province offered a
thousand crowns for its head, the Archbishop ordered prayers for public
preservation, and the commanding officer of the department scoured
the country with light cavalry. These measures failed, and after a
troop of the 10th dragoons had pursued it for six weeks through the
mountainous parts of Languedoc, and though it was seen several times,
had failed to come up with the animal, the reward was increased to
ten thousand livres, and Louis XV. offered six thousand more. High
masses innumerable were said, and cavalry, bands of game-keepers, and
gentlemen with their servants, sought the monster in all directions.
Hunters by thousands were in search of it for months, and in the
meantime its howl was heard in village streets at night, children and
women were killed in their farmyards, woodcutters lost their lives in
forests, and men were dragged out of vehicles on the public roads by
day.
At last the Sieur de la Chaumette, a famous wolf slayer, appeared upon
the scene. His two brothers accompanied him, and they actually found
and wounded the animal. The chase was taken up by him again, and he was
joined by a party of hunters picked from the most expert foresters of
fifty parishes. It was in vain, however, for they never viewed their
quarry again. In September, 1765, the Sieur de Blanterne, in company
with two associates, shot the wild beast of Gevaudan, which had ravaged
a large region of Southern France for nearly a year. The carcass was
sent to Paris, and proved to be that of an enormous wolf.
A creature capable of killing one man, is able, all things being equal,
to kill a dozen or a hundred.
Wolves’ ravages are at present confined to places from which we have
no reports, and that is the reason why public opinion always places
such occurrences in the past. In all essentials wolves are potentially
the same as ever, but their relations to mankind differ according
to geographical position. In one place they are harmless and timid,
in another they are aggressive and dangerous. Throughout the Arctic
regions of the earth, where one might imagine that privation would
render them audacious, they generally avoid the presence of human
beings and are not often seen. Franklin, Back, and Parry have little
to say about them, and it is the same with many other travellers
in their northern haunts. Bush, Kennan, Cotteau, Seabohn, Collins,
Price, etc., have no information of any importance to give. Even Dr.
Richardson, the naturalist, passes them by nearly unnoticed, and Rink
(“Danish Greenland”), in his collection of the “Tales and Traditions
of the Eskimo,” is silent on this subject. All these authors, however,
refer to other animals of the Arctic. Dr. Harris (“Navigantium atque
Itinerantium Bibliotheca”) finds places for the bear, musk-ox, fox,
wolverene, in his immense repository of facts and impressions, but none
for the wolf.
A somewhat comprehensive acquaintance with what has been said
concerning this creature, disposes the writer to think, that the
silence of explorers with regard to a beast that would naturally
attract attention, is explained by Captain Ross (“Voyage to Baffin’s
Bay”). In his first expedition the wolf is not mentioned among those
animals described in the “Fauna of the Arctic Highlands”; but in his
narrative of the “Second Voyage” he says, “the perpetual hunting of
the natives seems to prevent deer, together with those beasts of prey
that follow on their traces, from remaining in their vicinity.” Dr.
John D. Godman (“American Natural History”) contradicts Ross flatly,
and asserts that “in the highest northern latitudes ... wolves are very
numerous and exceedingly audacious. They are generally to be found
at no great distance from the huts of Esquimaux, and follow these
people from place to place, being apparently much dependent upon them
for food during the coldest season of the year.” Godman does not say
whether his information was got at first hand, or taken from others,
but there is no doubt as to the fact that he is wrong. High latitudes
do not furnish permanent habitats for game. Reindeer or caribou are not
only migratory, but wander constantly; the latter being, as Charles C.
Ward remarks, “a very Ishmaelite” in its habits. The same is true of
other animals upon which wolves subsist, and the idea of their living
in any numbers upon Eskimo leavings is amusing.