same explanation as Captain Ross for the fact that wolves are so
rarely seen in the far north. “Wild animals of any kind,” they inform
us, “are seldom viewed in the Hudson Bay territories, unless they
are carefully tracked up. They are so constantly hunted, ... and
whenever they encounter man, are so invariably pursued, that they are
ever on their guard, and escape without being seen.” Forced to range
widely because the character of this region involves constant change
of place upon the part of their principal game, and made wary to the
last degree by perpetual hostilities, it might well be that travellers
found them absent from those regions they explored, and scarcely had an
opportunity to observe such as were actually in their vicinity. Thus
Parry (“Journal”), who was struck by their shyness, says, “it is very
extraordinary that no man could succeed in killing or capturing one of
these animals, though we were for months almost constantly endeavoring
to do so.”
Something, however, may depend upon local variety. Captain Koldewey
(“German Arctic Expedition”) tells us that “the peculiar--species,
he calls it--of wolf met with in other arctic neighborhoods is not
found in East Greenland; neither is the wolf-like dog now dying out
from disease.” Brown (“Fauna of Greenland”) takes the same view, but
whatever the facts may be, dogs and wolves have sometimes been known
to treat each other very differently. Sir Edward Belcher (“The Last
of the Arctic Voyages”) saw a wolf, which he at first supposed from
its appearance to be one of Sir John Franklin’s surviving dogs, come
up to his own team on the sledge journey of 1853. “It did not quarrel
with them.... Its habits were certainly very peculiar; it cared not
for us, and frequently approached so near that it might have been
shot, but was not disposed to make friends.” Even if the tameness of
this animal had been due to starvation, that would not have accounted
for the friendliness of Belcher’s dogs. General A. W. Greely (“Three
Years of Arctic Service”) reports of his, that “whenever wolves were
near they exhibited signs of uneasiness, if not of fear.” Captain Ross
noticed that his dogs at Boothia Felix “trembled and howled” whenever
wolves approached them. It is well known, however, that in the arctic,
as elsewhere, these animals interbreed. Godman gives the following:
“_Scientia naturali multum versato et fide digno viro Sabina, se canem
Terræ-novæ cum lupa coire frequenter vidis_.” Theodore Roosevelt
and others speak of the same thing as coming under their personal
cognizance.
In high latitudes of America and Asia the wolf’s attitude towards
man is inconstant to a marked degree. Much difference is doubtless
due to influences both general and local, permanent and temporary,
which it is impossible to ascertain from any accounts. The packs C. A.
Hall (“Arctic Researches”) met with near “Frobisher’s Farthest,” and
at J. K. Smith’s Island, manifested none of that timidity which has
been remarked upon as the consequence of constant persecution. On
the contrary, “they were bold,” says Hall, “approaching quite near,
watching our movements, opening their mouths, snapping their teeth, and
smacking their chops, as if already feasting on human flesh and blood.”
Similarly, “eleven big fellows crossed the path” of O. W. Wahl (“Land
of the Czar”) “one winter day, near Stavropol.” They merely inspected
the travellers and went on. Colonel N. Prejevalsky (“From Kulja across
the Tian Shan to Lob-nor”) saw but few wolves, and in his report upon
the fauna of the Tarim valley, he remarks that they “are unfrequent,
if not rare.” During his expedition (“Mongolia”), however, the Tibetan
wolf, _Lupus chanco_, the same animal he thinks that the Mongols of
Kan-su call _tsobr_, but really the common species under one of its
many changes of color, was found to be “savage and impudent.” Captain
William Gill (“The River of Golden Sand”) saw “here and there” on the
broken and undulating plains of Mongolia near the Chinese frontier,
“small villages surrounded by a wall to protect them from the troops of
wolves that in the desolate winter scour the barrens of San-Tai.”
Nothing would be gained by multiplying references, which might easily
be given _ad nauseam_ without finding that there was any particular
change in their tenor. Enough have been already presented to show how
utterly valueless are those sweeping conclusions upon the character and
habits of wolves, which we are too much accustomed to see. The widest
generalization on this subject that can be made with any approach
to certainty, is that these animals, over and above their specific
traits, are what their situations and the experiences connected with
ordinary and every-day life make them. It is a well-attested fact
that the wolf may be domesticated, and instances of this kind are not
uncommon. Audubon, for example, saw them drawing the small carts in
which Assiniboin Indians brought their peltries into Fort Union. Samuel
Hearne (“A Journey from Prince of Wales Fort in Hudson Bay, to the
Northern Ocean”) gives an account of certain things seen by himself,
which seem to indicate that these animals occasionally bear like
relations to savages with those which must have subsisted when they
were first reclaimed. “Wolves,” he says, “are very frequently met with
in those countries west of Hudson’s Bay, both on the barren grounds
and among the woods; but they are not numerous. It is very uncommon to
see more than three or four of them in a herd.... All the wolves in
Hudson’s Bay are very shy of the human race.... They are great enemies
to the Indian dogs, and constantly kill and eat those that are heavy
loaded and cannot keep up with the main body.... The females are much
swifter than males, for which reason, the Indians, both northern and
southern, are of opinion that they kill the greatest part of the game.”
This, however, cannot be the case, Hearne observes, because they
live apart during winter, and do not associate till towards spring.
“They always burrow under ground to bring forth their young; and it is
natural to suppose that they are very fierce at those times; yet I have
very frequently seen even the Indians go to their dens, take out the
young ones and play with them. I never knew a northern Indian to hurt
one of them; on the contrary, they always carefully put them into the
den again; and I have sometimes seen them paint the faces of the young
wolves with vermilion or red ochre.”
This statement of the friendliness existing between man and these
beasts is unique. James Morier in the mountains of Armenia, Persia,
and Asia Minor, Douglas Freshfield in the Central Caucasus, Atkinson,
Prejevalsky, and Gill in Northern Asia, Forsyth, Hunter, and Pollok in
India and Indo-China, and a host of witnesses in Europe and America,
have given evidence to their destructiveness and to the enmity with
which they are regarded.
There never has been any question with respect to the wolf’s
intelligence. His sagacity and cunning are of the highest brute
order; and although, if one looks at a longitudinal section of his
brain, it appears poorly developed, when compared with that of a dog,
resembling, to use Lockington’s simile, a pear with the small end
forwards, the latter animal is probably not inferior to the former
in natural faculty. “If we could subtract,” says Professor Romanes
(“Animal Intelligence”), “from the domestic dog all those influences
arising from his prolonged companionship with man, and at the same time
intensify the feelings of self-reliance, rapacity, etc., we should
get the emotional character now presented by wolves and jackals.” The
former need to be wise in their generation, for it is but seldom that
their “ways are ways of pleasantness,” and their paths are never those
of peace. Their gaunt frames and voracious appetites have become common
colloquialisms, and each has to match his astuteness against all the
devices for his destruction that human ingenuity can invent.
Lloyd describes the amenities and virtues that adorned the character of
a wolf cub belonging to Madame Bedoire; how it guarded her premises,
made friends with her dog, went walking with its mistress, played with
her children, and howled when she did not caress it. The biography of
this blessed infant was written by a lady; Lloyd merely inserts the
account. It had to be shot when it was a year old. He himself had a
young she-wolf whose most noticeable actions seemed to be connected
with her endeavors to get pigs within reach of where she was chained.
“When she saw a pig in the vicinity of her kennel, she, evidently with
the intention of putting him off his guard, would throw herself on her
side or back, roll, wag her tail most lovingly, and look like innocence
personified”; but if, as occasionally happened, the pig’s mind was
impressed with these artless ebullitions of youthful joy, and it came
near enough, the creature was done for. While Sir Edward Belcher’s ship
lay in winter quarters a wolf haunted her vicinity. He sat under her
stern, he beguiled the dogs away, he drove off all the game. Then they
tried to kill or capture him, but in vain. When pieces of meat were
fixed at the muzzles of loaded muskets, he fired off the guns and ate
the bait. Seated upon a hill, just out of range, this “charmed wolf,”
as the men called him, “narrowly watched the proceedings of those
engaged in further schemes for his destruction, and exulted possibly in
his superior wisdom.” Belcher’s sailors began to believe this animal to
be one of the officers of Sir John Franklin’s lost ship, the _Erebus_.
Dr. Rae reports the case of a wolf that cut the string fastened to the
trigger of a gun before taking the meat placed in front of it. And
Audubon relates that wolves watch fishermen in the northern lakes, pull
their lines up, and appropriate the catch. They gnaw through heavy
timber into caches and undermine dead-falls. They uncover and spring
steel traps, and are as difficult to beguile as the wolverene--it is
impossible to say more. Captain Lyon’s crew caught a wolf in a trap
that pretended to be dead when the men who set it arrived. Wherever
men carry firearms the wolf appreciates their effectiveness, and is
perfectly well aware that his coat will not turn a rifle-ball. But
while this exercises an obvious influence upon his general behavior,
in most cases the ability to see the movements of his enemy seems to
lessen his dread of what may happen. If several are together when fired
at, they will scamper off; but it is very common to see them turn when
they think themselves safe, and regard their adversary with strict
attention.
Upon the whole, it is doubtful whether wolves have been much diminished
in numbers anywhere, except in places where the country has become
thickly settled. While these creatures have solitudes to fall back
upon, they make use of those great advantages in the struggle for
existence which they possess. Their speed, endurance, and hardihood,
the number produced at a birth, and their exceeding sagacity, qualify
this race to fight the battle of life, hard as it is in most instances,
in a manner that but few animals of any kind can equal.
There are two reasons why, in the midst of fragmentary notices and
romances innumerable, authentic annals of American frontier life are
so meagre in their accounts of what these beasts have done. The first
is that our earlier settlers were men such as they have encountered
nowhere else, and the wolves were soon cowed. In the second place,
perils threatened those living on the border, which were so much more
imminent than any which ever became actual through the agency of
wolves that these beasts came to be disregarded. Those depredations
and murders which they really perpetrated were only perpetuated in
tradition, and when survivals of this kind came to be recast by writers
who, besides being unacquainted with all the facts, knew nothing about
the animals themselves, they at once assumed a form that was stamped
with all the incongruities of crude invention, and served only to
conceal more effectually that portion of truth upon which these poor
fictions were constructed.
It is probable that all, who, having really observed the character of
those wolves that inhabit what were once the buffalo ranges of the
Northwest, and then going southward made the acquaintance of that
large, yellowish-red wolf called the _lobo_, in Mexico, will admit that
there is much difference between them. In the Sierra Madre two wolves
are commonly considered to be a match for a man armed as these people
usually are, and unless the whole population have conspired together
for the purpose of propagating falsehoods on this particular subject,
it must be believed that the lobo is often guilty of manslaughter.
It has not happened to the writer to be personally cognizant of the
death of any victim of theirs, but riding westward one day through
the forests of that mountainous country lying between Durango and the
Pacific coast, in the interval between two divisions of a large train
of _arrieros_ separated from each other by a distance of several miles,
a woman and two children, boy and girl, were met. Struck by the beauty
of the little girl, and knowing the way to be unsafe, some conversation
took place in which the mother made light of those dangers suggested,
and declined, with a profusion of thanks, an offer to see the party
safe to her sister’s rancho in a neighboring valley. They had only a
little distance to go along the ridge, she said, and would then soon
descend to their place of destination. The wolves were like devils, it
was true, but robbers were worse, and she had many times crossed there
from her home without meeting with either. In short,--_muchissimas
gracias Señor, y todos los santos, etc., etc. Adios_!
All of them were devoured a very short time after. Their clothes
and bones were found scattered on the trail which they had not yet
left before they were killed. The muleteers in rear who found these
fragments collected and buried them, putting up the usual frail cross
which is to be seen along this route, literally by scores.
This term _lobo_ is indiscriminately applied in Spanish America to
creatures that bear little resemblance to one another. The _guara_
of Brazil is known under that name, an inoffensive, vegetable-eating
animal, in every respect unlike the wolf in character and habits, and,
according to Dr. Lund, specifically distinct from it in having the
second and third vertebræ of its neck characteristically elongated.
Emmanuel Liais, however (“Climats, Géologie, Faune du Brésil”), states
the chief contrasts between those creatures in question succintly, as
follows: “_Au point de vue du régime alimentaire, les deux espèces du
genre Canis les plus éloignées sont le loup commun d’Europe, animal
féroce et sauguinaire, et la plus carnivore de toutes les espèces du
genre, et l’Aguara ou Guara du Brésil--Canis Jubatus de Demarest,
appelé à Minas-Geraes trés-improprement Lobo (nom portugais du Loup),
et décrit par la plupart des ouvrages de mammologie comme le loup du
Brésil. C’est cependent le moins carnivore de tous les chiens connus,
et sa nourriture préférée consiste en substances végétales._”
As has been said, the wolf does not reach its highest development
in hot countries. Wolves may be dangerous and destructive within
low latitudes, as is the case both in America and Asia, but it will
be found that when this occurs their range is generally confined to
elevated regions in those provinces. Major H. Bevan (“Thirty Years in
India”) states that “wolves are amongst the most noxious tenants of
the jungles around Nagpore, and they annually destroy many children;
but they do not commit such ravages as in northern India.” The same
is true of the “giant wolf,” _Lupus Gigas_, that Townsend and other
naturalists described as a distinct species; but this brute which
has so evil a reputation in the highlands of Mexico, “the red Texan
wolf,” as Audubon calls it, does not extend in the United States to the
northern prairies; it only exists as a variety of the common species in
the lower Mississippi valley, and farther south.
Audubon remarks that this form of the common species has “the same
sneaking, cowardly, yet ferocious disposition” as other wolves;
nevertheless those anecdotes with which he intersperses his
descriptions are certainly not calculated to foster the belief that his
impression agrees with facts.
There are certain traits and habits belonging to wolves at large
which may now be brought together. They are not by any means strictly
nocturnal animals, but very commonly prowl by night, and in places
where large packs assemble; most of what has with truth been said
against them occurred under cover of darkness. By all accounts, it
is amidst gloom and storm, while the _buran_ rages over the arctic
tundra, that troops of these fierce creatures do their worst among
Yakut and Tungoo reindeer herds. Caribou are not herded, and have been
but little observed by those who could give any information upon such
a point as this. Everywhere, a wolf is destructive, fierce, wary and
sagacious. Moreover, it will often become aggressive and audacious
in the highest degree, when circumstances contribute to foster the
development and facilitate the expression of its natural character.
It is the typical wild beast of its family, and if it is not in many
instances sanguinary and prone to take the offensive, there is a much
better explanation for abstention from violence than that of natural
cowardice. Wolves have far too much sense not to know what they can
gain with least exposure to loss; and no beast of prey, that is sane,
and not driven to desperation, ever proceeds upon any other principle
than this. Given the existence of mind, those accidents by which mind
is modified, and relative differences in degree among its qualities,
must also be admitted. Comparative stupidity, evenness of temper, want
of enterprise, tameness and timidity, undoubtedly distinguish wolf
and wolf, as they do all carnivores. Still this would not account
for the conventional wolf, or explain the anomaly of its imaginary
character, or show why, or on what grounds, it is maintained that there
should exist so great an incongruity in nature as an animal unadjusted
mentally and yet adapted physically to a predatory life; that has at
the same time the disposition of a tiger and the harmlessness of a
lamb, that lives by violence, yet shrinks from every struggle, that
maintains itself by the exercise of powers it must be fully conscious
of possessing, and is constantly debarred from the results which it
might attain through their exercise by causeless apprehension. This is
very nearly what must be meant when a beast of prey is called a coward.
Wolves stalk their prey, ambush it, either alone or in collusion
with others that drive the game, and they also run it down. The jaw
is very powerful and formidably armed, and in proportion to its bulk
this creature is exceedingly strong. A wolf, though structurally
carnivorous, will eat anything--fish, flesh, or fowl, fresh or putrid,
animal or vegetal. When he has gorged to the limit of his capacity, if
anything remains it is commonly dragged to some place of concealment
and buried. Then the brute lies down until the apathy induced by
surfeit passes away. Wolves hunt both by sight and scent, by day and
night. They will certainly interbreed with dogs, producing fertile
offspring; and they may be domesticated. But as they grow older the
characteristics germane to their savage natures assert themselves.
It is said by Godman that “when kept in close confinement, and fed
on vegetable matter, the common wolf becomes tame and harmless, ...
shy, restless, timid.” If he had said it became _ill_, the statement
would have been more conformable with fact. No such interruption of
the normal course of life is possible without an impairment of health,
both bodily and mental. Carnivorous animals are not to be turned into
vegetarians at will, nor any creature’s energies thwarted and cramped
without distortion and atrophy.
Wolves no doubt can swim, but it is certain that a wolf seldom
voluntarily takes to water in which he cannot wade. Audubon saw one
swimming, and others have witnessed the like. Still all accounts
represent these beasts as stopping short in pursuit on the bank of a
stream. Naturalists say that the length of life in this species is
twenty years, and it has been recorded also that they do not become
gray with age. It looks like a purility to repeat what has been
gravely reported more than once; namely, that when wolves have plenty
to eat they get fat, become lazy, and are not so aggressive as under
contrary conditions. On the other hand, nothing is more common than
to find writers explaining every act of audacity as due to hunger.
Most probably it is; they would hardly go hunting while in a state of
repletion. But the question is, how these authorities find out the
exact state of their dietaries, and can be certain that they must be
starving before they will attack the wild Asiatic ox or American moose;
also how much less food is required, to urge them on to assail a party
of men.
In seasons of scarcity wolves of the northern plains prey upon
prairie-dogs, ground-squirrels, hares, foxes, badgers, etc.; small
creatures that offer no resistance, and which it is only difficult to
catch. At the same time they hunt the large game of North America,
and although, much to the disgust of a certain class of writers, the
common wolf, which weighs about a hundred pounds, does not select a
buffalo bull in the best fighting trim as an object for attack when a
less formidable animal of this species can be found, or meet the moose,
that often stands six feet at the withers, or indeed any creature that
can kill him, in such a way as to give it the best opportunity for
doing so, he often has to fight and frequently comes to grief. But they
“give every human being a wide berth,” says Roosevelt, and it would be
strange indeed if they did not, since none are apt to be encountered
who, according to the wolf’s experience, are unprepared for offensive
action, or who do not make it their business in those parts to destroy
him. This fact has been completely realized by wolves of the plains,
and it is for this reason that in these latitudes they have now become,
what Colonel Dodge asserts that they are, “of all carnivorous animals
of equal size and strength, the most harmless to beasts, and the least
dangerous to man.”
A wolf’s structure is not by any means so well adapted to destructive
purposes as that of the larger _Felidæ_. No species of the genus
_Canis_ has either the teeth, claws or muscles which belong to cats.
A predatory animal may, and often does, make an error in judgment,
but there is one thing that it never does, and that is, to attack
deliberately knowing beforehand that it must fight fairly for victory,
and that the issue is quite as likely to be fatal to itself as to its
destined prey. A single wolf is not a match for those large animals
it destroys; and when, in virtue of what Professor Romanes calls the
“collective instinct,” odds have been taken against them, they succumb
before a combined assault.