C. Lupus, the Common 'Wolf, is known by the following characters:— It is yellowish or fulvous gray ; hair harsh and strong, longest below the cars and on the neck (particularly the throat), shoulders, and launches; muzzle black ; cheeks and parts above the eyes ochreous, gray in very old subjects; upper lip and chin white ; eyes oblique; tail not curling ; a blackish streak or band on the fore legs about tho carpus; height at the shoulder from 27 to 29 inches.
Variety white : either as an' albino, or according to the French writers, from the effect of the northern climate in the winter. Colonel Smith is of opinion that the white wolves occurring sometimes among the races of middle Europe are mere cases of albinism.
This is the wolf that more commonly infests the western countries of Europe. Curler state that it is found from Egypt to Lapland, and seems to have paased over into America. Colonel Smith remarks that the French wolves are generally browner and somewhat smaller than those of Germany ; that the Russian race is longer, and appears more bulky and formidable from the great quantity of long coarse hair on the cheeks, gullet, and neck ; their eyes are very small, and their whole aspect peculiarly savage and sinister; that the Swedish and Norwegian wolves are similar to the Russian in form, but appear heavier and deeper in the shoulder, lighter in colour than the Miamian race, and in winter totally white ; that the Alpine wolves are brownish gray and smaller than the French ; those of Italy and to the eastward, towards Turkey fulvous.
This is the variety, most probably, which formerly lurked in the uncleared woody districts of the British Islands ; for that Wolves were once numerous hero is as clear as that the Bear once prowled in Scot land and Wales. It would be a waste of paper and space to detail the documentary evidence, and that to be derived from ancient coins, gems, and sculptures, which prove that the Larma of the Roman his torians and poets, and the Lulus which was fabled to have suckled Romulus and Remus was the same animal with the ancient Britiah Wolf. Whatever tho Romans might have done to put down these ferocious but cowardly beasts of prey, they left enough for their Saxon and Norman successors to do. Edgar applied himself to their extir pation in earnest, enlisting English criminals in the eerrice by com muting the punishment awarded for their crimes to a delivery of a given number of wolves' tongues, and liberating tho Welsh from the payment of the tax of gold and silver on condition of an annual tribute of 300 wolves. But the 'mat wild tracts and deep forests of ancient
Britain were holds too strong oven for his vigorous measures. What the numbers and consequent danger had been may be imagined from the necessity that existed in the previous reign of Atheistane (sap. 925) for a refuge against their attacks. Accordingly a retreat was built at Flixton in Yorkshire, to save travellers from being devoured by these gaunt hunters. The Saxon name for the month of January, Wolf Moneth, in which dreary season hunger probably made the wolves most desperate, and the term for an outlaw, ' Wolf's-lled,' implying that he might be killed with as much impunity as a wolf, also indicate the numbers of these destructive beasts, and the hatred and terror which they inspired.
That Edgar failed in his attempts at extirpation is manifest from a mandamus of Edward I. to all bailiffs, &c. to give their assistance to his faithful and beloved Peter Corbet, whom the king had enjoined to take and destroy wolves (Inpos), " cum hominibus, canibua, et ingeniis suis modis omnibus Taus viderit expedire," in all forests and parks and other places in the counties of Gloucester, Worcester, Hereford, and Salop, where they could be found. King John, in his grant, quoted by Pennant from Bishop Lyttelton's collection, as being in the pos session of the dean and chapter of Exeter, mentions the wolf (lupuni) among the beasts of chase which the Devonshire men are thereby licensed to kill.
In Derbyshire certain tenants at Wormhill held their lands by the duty of hunting and taking the wolves (' \Volvo Hunt') which har boured in the county. Even so late as 1577 the flocks of Scotland appear to have suffered from the ravages of wolves, which do not seem to have been rooted out of that portion of the kingdom till about the year 1680, when Sir Ewen Cameron's hand laid the last wolf low. In Ireland wolves must have lingered as late as the year 1710, about which time the last presentment for killing them in the county of Cork was mado.