The following are some of the chief differences between wolves, wild dogs, and domestic dogs. The ears of the wild animals are always pricked, the lop or drooping ear being essentially a mark of civilization; with very rare exceptions, their tails hang more or less and are bushy, the honest cock of the tail so characteristic of a respectable dog, being wanting. This is certainly the rule; but, curious enough, the Zoological Gardens contain at the present moment, a Portuguese female wolf which carries her tail as erect and with as bold an air as any dog. Wolves and wild dogs growl, howl, yelp, and cry most discordantly, but with one exception, do not bark; that exception being the wild hunting-dog of South Africa, which, according to Mr. Cumming, has three distinct cries; one is peculiarly soft and melodious, but distinguishable at a great distance: this is analogous to the trumpet-call, "halt and rally," of cavalry, serving to collect the scattered pack when broken in hot chase. A second cry, which has been compared to the chattering of monkeys, is emitted at night when the dogs are excited; and the third note is described as a sharp, angry bark, usually uttered when they behold an object they can not make out, but which differs from the true, well-known bark of the domestic dog.
The common or European wolf is found from Egypt to Lapland, and is most probably the variety that formerly haunted these islands. The wolves of Russia are large and fierce, and have a peculiarly savage aspect. The Swedish and Norwegian are similar to the Russian in form, but are lighter in color, and in winter, totally white. Those of France are browner and smaller than either of these, and the Alpine wolves are smaller still. Wolves are very numerous in the northern regions of America; "their foot-marks," says Sir John Richardson, "may be seen by the side of every stream, and a traveler can rarely pass the night in these wilds without hearing them howling around him."[1] These wolves burrow, and bring forth their young in earths with several outlets, like those of a fox. Sir John saw none with the gaunt appearance, the long jaw and tapering nose, long legs and slender feet, of the Pyrenean wolves.
India, too, is infested with wolves, which are smaller than the European. There is a remarkably fine animal at the Zoological Gardens, born of a European father and Indian mother, which, in size and other respects, so closely partakes of the characteristics of his sire, that he might well pass for pure blood.
Among the ancients, wolves gave rise to many superstitious fictions. For instance, it was said that they possessed "an evil eye," and that, if they looked on a man before he saw them, he would forthwith lose his voice. Again, we find the Roman witches, like the weird sisters of Macbeth, employing the wolf in their incantations:
"Utque lupi barbam variæ cum dente colubræ
Abdiderint furtim terris."
Hor. Sat. viii. lib. i.
There was a myth prevalent among the ancients, that in Arcadia there lived a certain family of the Antæi, of which one was ever obliged to be transformed into a wolf. The members of the family cast lots, and all accompanied the luckless wight on whom the lot fell, to a pool of water. This he swam over, and having entered into the wilderness on the other side, was forthwith in form, a wolf, and for nine years kept company with wolves: at the expiration of that period he again swam across the pool, and was restored to his natural shape, only that the addition of nine years was placed upon his features. It was also imagined that the tail of the wolf contained a hair, which acted as a love philtre and excited the tender passion. The myth of Romulus and Remus having been suckled by a wolf, arose from the simple circumstance of their nurse having been named Lupa—an explanation which sadly does away with the garland of romance that so long surrounded the story of the founders of Rome. The figure of the wolf at one time formed a standard for the Roman legions, as saith Pliny, "Caius Marius, in his second consulship, ordained that the legions of Roman soldiers only should have the egle for their standard, and no other signe, for before time the egle marched foremost indeed, but in a ranke of foure others, to wit, wolves, minotaures, horses, and bores."[2]
The dried snout of a wolf held, in the estimation of the ancients, the same rank that a horseshoe does now with the credulous. It was nailed upon the gates of country farms, as a counter-charm against the evil eye, and was supposed to be a powerful antidote to incantations and witchcraft. New-married ladies were wont, upon their wedding-day, to anoint the side-posts of their husbands' houses with wolves' grease, to defeat all demoniac arts. These animals bore, however, but a bad character when alive; for, exclusive of their depredations, it was imagined that if horses chanced to tread in the foot-tracks of wolves, their feet were immediately benumbed; but Pliny also says, "Verily, the great master teeth and grinders of a wolf being hanged about an horse necke, cause him that he shall never tire and be weary, be he put to never so much running in any race whatsoever." When a territory was much infested with wolves, the following ceremony was performed with much solemnity and deep subsequent carousal: A wolf would be caught alive, and his legs carefully broken. He was then dragged around the confines of the farm, being bled with a knife from time to time, so that the blood might sprinkle the ground. Being generally dead when the journey had been completed, he was buried in the very spot whence he had started on his painful race.
There was scarcely a filthy thing upon the earth, or under the earth, which the ancients did not in some way use medicinally; and we find Paulus Ægineta recommends the dry and pounded liver of a wolf, steeped in sweet wine, as a sovereign remedy for diseases of the liver, &c.
Our English word wolf is derived from the Saxon wulf and from the same root, the German wolf, the Swedish ulf, and Danish ulv are probably derived. Wolves were at one time a great scourge to this country, the dense forests which formerly covered the land favoring their safety and their increase. Edgar applied himself seriously to rid his subjects of this pest, by commuting the punishment of certain crimes into the acceptance of a number of wolves' tongues from each criminal; and in Wales by commuting a tax of gold and silver imposed on the Princes of Cambria by Ethelstan, into an annual tribute of three hundred wolves' heads, which Jenaf, Prince of North Wales, paid so punctually, that by the fourth year the breed was extinct. Not so, however, in England, for like ill weeds, they increased and multiplied here, rendering necessary the appointment, in the reign of the first Edward, of a wolf-hunter general, in the person of one Peter Corbet; and his majesty thought it not beneath his dignity to issue a mandamus, bearing date May 14th, 1281, to all bailiffs, &c., to aid and assist the said Peter in the destruction of wolves in the counties of Gloucester, Worcester, Hereford, Shropshire, and Stafford; and Camden informs us that in Derby, lands were held at Wormhill by the duty of hunting and taking the wolves that infested that county. In the reign of Athelstan, these pests had so abounded in Yorkshire, that a retreat was built at Flixton in that county, "to defend passengers from the wolves that they should not be devoured by them." Our Saxon ancestors also called January, when wolves pair, wolf-moneth; and an outlaw was termed wolfshed, being out of the protection of the law, and as liable to be killed as that destructive beast.