e wolf never associates with its own kind; and when, by
accident, it happens that a few are seen together, be sure the meeting
is not a Peace Congress, or a party of pleasure. The assembled wolves
represent a society of reds, preparing the arrangements for a combat, in
which many a stream of blood shall flow, amidst the most fearful and
horrible cries. If a wolf intends to attack a large animal,--for
instance, an ox or a horse,--or if he desires to put a watch-dog, whose
strength disquiets him, or whose vigilance incommodes him, out of his
way, he roves about the lonely paths of the forest, raising a sharp
prolonged cry, which immediately attracts other wolves in the
neighbourhood; and when he finds himself surrounded by a numerous troop
of his colleagues, bound together by no other tie than the common object
they all have in view for the moment, he conducts them to the attack,
and should the farmer be not there to out-manoeuvre them, it will be
odd indeed if the animal that they have agreed to destroy does not fall
a victim to their plans. The expedition over, the valiant brotherhood
separate, and each returns in silence to his thicket, whence they emerge
to reunite, when slaughter and blood call them forth again to make
common cause.

Wolves attain their full size in three years, and live from fifteen to
twenty; their hair, like that of man, grows gray with years, and like
him also they lose their teeth, but without the advantage of being able
to replace them; the race of wolves is as old as the flood,--even older,
for their bones have been found in antediluvian remains. They are found
in all countries on the New Continent as well as the Old. "They exist,"
observes Cuvier, "in Asia, Africa, and America, as well as in Europe;
from Egypt to Lapland; everywhere, in fact, excepting in England." How
an animal so detestable and so universally hated should have continued
to perpetuate itself, when every other species of savage beast on the
face of the earth diminishes in an infinitely greater proportion, is a
problem difficult to solve.

Fourrier, in his "_Theorie Harmonique et comparative des especes_,"
remarks truly, that each species of the human race corresponds with some
species of the brute creation. The wolves in the forest represent the
Jews in the towns; and he asserts, that it being possible only to
compare the voracity of the one with the rapacity of the other, these
two races, which are identical by reason of th