ircumstance of their nurse
having been named Lupa--an explanation which sadly does away with the
garland of romance that so long surrounded the story of the founders of
Rome. The figure of the wolf at one time formed a standard for the Roman
legions, as saith Pliny, "Caius Marius, in his second consulship,
ordained that the legions of Roman soldiers only should have the egle
for their standard, and no other signe, for before time the egle
marched foremost indeed, but in a ranke of foure others, to wit,
wolves, minotaures, horses, and bores."[2]

The dried snout of a wolf held, in the estimation of the ancients, the
same rank that a horseshoe does now with the credulous. It was nailed
upon the gates of country farms, as a counter-charm against the evil
eye, and was supposed to be a powerful antidote to incantations and
witchcraft. New-married ladies were wont, upon their wedding-day, to
anoint the side-posts of their husbands' houses with wolves' grease, to
defeat all demoniac arts. These animals bore, however, but a bad
character when alive; for, exclusive of their depredations, it was
imagined that if horses chanced to tread in the foot-tracks of wolves,
their feet were immediately benumbed; but Pliny also says, "Verily, the
great master teeth and grinders of a wolf being hanged about an horse
necke, cause him that he shall never tire and be weary, be he put to
never so much running in any race whatsoever." When a territory was much
infested with wolves, the following ceremony was performed with much
solemnity and deep subsequent carousal: A wolf would be caught alive,
and his legs carefully broken. He was then dragged around the confines
of the farm, being bled with a knife from time to time, so that the
blood might sprinkle the ground. Being generally dead when the journey
had been completed, he was buried in the very spot whence he had started
on his painful race.

There was scarcely a filthy thing upon the earth, or under the earth,
which the ancients did not in some way use medicinally; and we find
Paulus AEgineta recommends the dry and pounded liver of a wolf, steeped
in sweet wine, as a sovereign remedy for diseases of the liver, &c.

Our English word _wolf_ is derived from the Saxon _wulf_ and from the
same root, the German _wolf_, the Swedish _ulf_, and Danish _ulv_ are
probably derived. Wolves were at one time a great scourge to this
country, the dense forests which formerly covered the land favoring
their