A curious notice of the existence of wolves and foxes in Scotland is afforded in Bellenden's translation of Boetius.[3] "The wolffis are right noisome to tame beastial in all parts of Scotland, except one part thereof, named Glenmorris, in which the tame beastial gets little damage of wild beastial, especially of tods (foxes); for each house nurses a young tod certain days, and mengis (mixes) the flesh thereof, after it be slain, with such meat as they give to their fowls or other small beasts, and so many as eat of this meat are preserved two months after from any damage of tods; for tods will eat no flesh that gusts of their own kind." The last wolf killed in Scotland is said to have fallen by the hand of Sir Ewen Cameron, about 1680; and singular to say, the skin of this venerable quadruped may yet be in existence: in a catalogue of Mr. Donnovan's sale of the London Museum, in April, 1818, there occurs the following item, "Lot 832. Wolf, a noble animal in a large glass case. The last wolf killed in Scotland, by Sir E. Cameron." It would be interesting to know what became of this lot.
The pairing time is January, when after many battles with rivals, the strongest males attach themselves to the females. The female wolf prepares a warm nest for her young, of soft moss and her own hair, carefully blended together. The cubs are watched by the parents with tender solicitude, are gradually accustomed to flesh, and when sufficiently strong their education begins, and they are taken to join in the chase; not the least curious part is the discipline by which they are inured to suffering and taught to bear pain without complaint; their parents are said to bite, maltreat, and drag them by the tail, punishing them if they utter a cry, until they have learned to be mute. To this quality Macaulay alludes when speaking of a wolf in his "Prophecy of Capys:"
"When all the pack, loud baying,
Her bloody lair surrounds,
She dies in silence, biting hard,
Amidst the dying hounds."
It is curious to observe the cunning acquired by wolves in well inhabited districts, where they are eagerly sought for destruction; they then never quit cover to windward: they trot along just within the edges of the wood until they meet the wind from the open country, and are assured by their keen scent that no danger awaits them in that quarter—then they advance, keeping under cover of hedgerows as much as possible, moving in single file and treading in each other's track; narrow roads they bound across, without leaving a footprint. When a wolf contemplates a visit to a farmyard, he first carefully reconnoitres the ground, listening, snuffing up the air, and smelling the earth; he then springs over the threshold without touching it and seizes on his prey. In retreat his head is low, turned obliquely, with one ear forward the other back, and the eyes glaring. He trots crouching, his brush obliterating the track of his feet till at some distance from the scene of his depredation, then feeling himself secure, he waves his tail erect in triumph, and boldly pushes on to cover.
In northern India, wolves together with jackals and pariah dogs, prowl about the dwellings of Europeans. Colonel Hamilton Smith relates a curious accident which befell a servant who was sleeping in a verandah with his head near the outer lattice: a wolf thrust his jaws between the bamboo, seized the man by the head, and endeavored to drag him through; the man's shrieks awakened the whole neighborhood, and assistance came, but though the wolf was struck at by many, he escaped. Wolves have even been known to attack sentries when single, as in the last campaign of the French armies in the vicinity of Vienna, when several of the videttes were carried off by them. During the retreat of Napoleon's army from Russia, wolves of the Siberian race followed the troops to the borders of the Rhine; specimens of these wolves shot in the vicinity, and easily distinguishable from the native breed, are still preserved in the museums of Neuwied, Frankfort, and Cassel.
Captain Lyon[4] relates the following singular instance of the cunning of a wolf which had been caught in a trap, and, being to all appearance dead, was dragged on board ship: "The eyes, however, were observed to wink whenever an object was placed near them, some precautions were, therefore, considered necessary, and the legs being tied the animal was hoisted up with his head downward. He then, to our surprise, made a vigorous spring at those near him, and afterward repeatedly turned himself upward so as to reach the rope by which he was suspended, endeavoring to gnaw it asunder, and making angry snaps at the persons who prevented him. Several heavy blows were struck on the back of his neck, and a bayonet was thrust through him, yet above a quarter of an hour elapsed before he died."
Hearne, in his journey to the Northern Ocean, says, that the wolves always burrow under ground at the breeding season, and though it is natural to suppose them very fierce at those times, yet he has frequently seen the Indians go to their dens, take out the cubs and play with them. These they never hurt, and always scrupulously put them in the den again, although they occasionally painted their faces with vermilion and red ochre, in strange and grotesque patterns.
This statement is supported by incidents which have occurred in this metropolis; there was a bitch wolf in the Tower Menagerie, which, though excessively fond of her cubs, suffered the keepers to handle them, and even remove them from the den, without evincing the slightest symptom either of anger or alarm; and a still more remarkable instance is related from observation, by Mr. Bell: "There was a wolf at the Zoological Gardens (says that able naturalist) which would always come to the front bars of the den as soon as I or any other person whom she knew, approached; she had pups, too, and so eager, in fact, was she that her little ones should share with her in the notice of her friends, that she killed all of them in succession by rubbing them against the bars of her den as she brought them forward to be fondled."
During the last year, 8807 wolves' skins were imported by the Hudson's Bay Company from their settlements; of which 8784 came from the York Fort and Mackenzie River stations; we recently had the opportunity of examining the stock, and found it principally composed of white wolves' skins from the Churchill River, with black and gray skins of every shade. The most valuable are from animals killed in the depth of winter, and of these, the white skins, which are beautifully soft and fine, are worth about thirty shillings apiece, and are exported to Hungary, where they are in great favor with the nobles as trimming for pelisses and hussar jackets; the gray wolves' skins are worth from three shillings and sixpence upward, and are principally exported to America and the North of Europe, to be used as cloak-linings.
Colonel H. Smith mentions a curious instance of the treacherous ferocity of the wolf. A butcher at New York had brought up, and believed he had tamed, a wolf, which he kept for above two years chained up in the slaughterhouse, where it lived in a complete superabundance of blood and offal. One night, having occasion for some implement which he believed was accessible in the dark, he went into this little Smithfield without thinking of the wolf. He was clad in a thick frieze coat, and while stooping to grope for what he wanted, he heard the chain rattle, and in a moment was struck down by the animal springing upon him. Fortunately, a favorite cattle-dog had accompanied his master, and rushed forward to defend him: the wolf had hold of the man's collar, and being obliged to turn in his own defense, the butcher had time to draw a large knife, with which he ripped his assailant open. The same able writer relates an incident which occurred to an English gentleman, holding a high public situation in the peninsula, during a wolf-hunt in the mountains, near Madrid. The sportsmen were placed in ambush, and the country-people drove the game toward them; presently an animal came bounding upward toward this gentleman, so large that he took it, while driving through the high grass and bushes, for a donkey; it was a wolf, however, whose glaring eyes meant mischief, but, scared by the click of the rifle, he turned and made his escape, though a bullet whistled after him; at the close of the hunt seven were found slain, and so large were they that this gentleman, though of uncommon strength, could not lift one entirely from the ground.