in a large glass
case. The last wolf killed in Scotland, by Sir E. Cameron." It would be
interesting to know what became of this lot.

The pairing time is January, when after many battles with rivals, the
strongest males attach themselves to the females. The female wolf
prepares a warm nest for her young, of soft moss and her own hair,
carefully blended together. The cubs are watched by the parents with
tender solicitude, are gradually accustomed to flesh, and when
sufficiently strong their education begins, and they are taken to join
in the chase; not the least curious part is the discipline by which they
are inured to suffering and taught to bear pain without complaint; their
parents are said to bite, maltreat, and drag them by the tail, punishing
them if they utter a cry, until they have learned to be mute. To this
quality Macaulay alludes when speaking of a wolf in his "Prophecy of
Capys:"

"When all the pack, loud baying,
Her bloody lair surrounds,
She dies in silence, biting hard,
Amidst the dying hounds."

It is curious to observe the cunning acquired by wolves in well
inhabited districts, where they are eagerly sought for destruction; they
then never quit cover to windward: they trot along just within the edges
of the wood until they meet the wind from the open country, and are
assured by their keen scent that no danger awaits them in that
quarter--then they advance, keeping under cover of hedgerows as much as
possible, moving in single file and treading in each other's track;
narrow roads they bound across, without leaving a footprint. When a wolf
contemplates a visit to a farmyard, he first carefully reconnoitres the
ground, listening, snuffing up the air, and smelling the earth; he then
springs over the threshold without touching it and seizes on his prey.
In retreat his head is low, turned obliquely, with one ear forward the
other back, and the eyes glaring. He trots crouching, his brush
obliterating the track of his feet till at some distance from the scene
of his depredation, then feeling himself secure, he waves his tail erect
in triumph, and boldly pushes on to cover.

In northern India, wolves together with jackals and pariah dogs, prowl
about the dwellings of Europeans. Colonel Hamilton Smith relates a
curious accident which befell a servant who was sleeping in a verandah
with his head near the outer lattice: a wolf thrust his jaws between the
bamboo, seized the man by the he