[1] In parts of the West, I am told, wolves often kill more than they need. Formerly they fed on the abundant game and were wholly natural animals; but their habits have changed with a changed environment. When the game was destroyed by settlers or hunters the wolves began to feed on domestic animals; and the descendants of these wolves, which killed right and left in a crowding, excited herd of sheep or cattle, are now said to kill deer wantonly when they have the chance. I cannot personally verify the saying, and know not whether it rests on exceptional or typical observation. In the North, where there are no domestic animals, I have rarely known a timber-wolf to kill after his hunger was satisfied. [↑]
How to Know the Wood Folk
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VII
On Getting Acquainted
To know birds and beasts may be a greater or a lesser triumph than to know ornithology or zoölogy. That is a question of taste or temperament, the only certainty being that the two classes of subjects are altogether different. The latter deals with external matters, with form, classification, generalities. Its materials are books, specimens, museums, one as dead or desiccate as another; and because it is limited and exact, you can memorize its outlines in a few days, or become in a few years an authority in the science.
The former subject, of birds and beasts, deals with an endless and fascinating mystery. Its materials are living and joyous individuals, among [[176]]whom are no classes or species, concerning whom there can be no “authority”; and when, after a lifetime of study, you have made a small beginning of knowledge, you find that, like All Gaul of misty memory, it may be divided into three parts.