C. lupus, the wolf. These animals are found in almoat all the temperate and cold climates of the globe. They abounded formerly in Great Britain and Ireland, but were extirpated by government's com muting the punishment for several of fences for a proportionate number of wolves' tongues, or by the substitution in Wales of a certain number of wolves'he ads for a particular amount of money in taxes. Some lands were also held,on condition of the occupiers destroying yearly a certain number of these dangerous animals.
In America, wolves are reported to go in drove s,and to hunt various animals with the most terrific and hidious howlings, not scrupling, when urged by hunger, to attack even the buffaloe itself. To allay their hunger, it is stated that they will swallow large quantities of mud. In Sweden the carcases of animals are pur posely laid in their way, stuffed with tree moss and pounded glass, which render the repast fatal to them. They are, liks the dog, subject to madness, communi cated also by bite, but generally coming on in winter rather than in summer. In the north of Europe they live much on seals, and extending their excursions far on the ice, when that is detached, in consequence of a change of weather, from the land, they are carried off into the ocean, and express the sense of their dreadful and insuperable danger by the most bitter howlings of despair.
There is no animal, whose carnivorous appetite is stronger than that of the wolf, and he is endowed by nature with all the means of satisfying it, being strong, agile, subtle, and enabled not only to explore, but to seize and subdue his prey.
By the perpetual war in which he is in volved with man, however, he is often re duced to extreme difficulties, and driven far into wilds and forests, where the means of satisfying his appetite are scarcely to be found : remoteness from human habi tation, in proportion as it adds to his scar city, embarrases his subsistence. The urgency of his wants drives him back to those dangers which he was eager to shun, and inspires him often with courage by no means natural to him, and rising to all the vehemence of fury and distraction. He will in these circumstances of pressure mhke no scruple of attacking women and children, and occasionally assault and de vour men. The Paris gazette for 1764, states the ravages and devastation by one of these creatures, near Languedoc, to have comprehended the destruction of no less than twenty persons. It will devour its own species as well as the human. It is remarkable for suspicion, for terror at the sound of a trumpet, for ex quisite acuteness of smell, for its endu rance of extreme cold and hunger, for its fearfulness of a cord or rope drawn along the ground, and for leaping over fences rather than passing through doors or gates. When taken young, its sa
vage character has, by assiduous educa tion, been not merely greatly mitigated, but, in a few instances, completely sub dued. The time of gestation in the wolf is 100 days, being forty more than that of the dog, which may be considered as a radical difference between these species of animals. See Manunalia, Plate VI. fig. 2.
C. hyaena, or the striped hyena. These animals are generally about the size of a large dog, and abound in many parts of Asia and Africa. They have been al most universally believed to be untame able, but several decided instances to the contrary have occurred. Their manners, however, are particularly untractable and ferocious, and truly indicated by that unremitted gloom and malice ex pressed in their countenance. They in habit, principally, rocks and caves, and, shunning the light of day, avail them selves of darkness to commit their depre dations. They feed not only on prey which they have themselves killed, but putrid carcases supply them with a de licious banquet, and the bodies of the dead are often, with most persevering la bour, torn up from their graves in churchyards, where they have some time been deposited, and devoured with the keenest relish. They follow the motions of contending armies, anticipating, by the associations furnished from experience, and which are formed in the inferior ani mals as well as in man, the feast to be supplied from human conflict and car nage. When they are first put in mo tion, they appear, as is not uncommon with dogs, to labour under some fracture or dislocation in their hind legs. This, however, in a short time totally vanishes. In Syria, and about Algiers, they live mnch, if not principally, on bulbous roots, in the choice of which they are uncom monly fastidious. In Barbary, the Moors will not hesitate to pull the hyena by the ears in the day-time, and, indeed, experi ence from it no attempt at injury : they will even enter his cave with a torch, and throwing a blanket over him, hawl him out without any inconvenience. In the same country some small animals have been shut up with a hyena fasting, during a whole day, and yet have been found alive and uninjured; but by night, a young ass, a goat, and a fox, locked up with one, were destroyed, and, excepting some of the larger bones of the ass, com pletely devoured before morning.