Part 24

There never has been any question with respect to the wolf’s intelligence. His sagacity and cunning are of the highest brute order; and although, if one looks at a longitudinal section of his brain, it appears poorly developed, when compared with that of a dog, resembling, to use Lockington’s simile, a pear with the small end forwards, the latter animal is probably not inferior to the former in natural faculty. “If we could subtract,” says Professor Romanes (“Animal Intelligence”), “from the domestic dog all those influences arising from his prolonged companionship with man, and at the same time intensify the feelings of self-reliance, rapacity, etc., we should get the emotional character now presented by wolves and jackals.” The former need to be wise in their generation, for it is but seldom that their “ways are ways of pleasantness,” and their paths are never those of peace. Their gaunt frames and voracious appetites have become common colloquialisms, and each has to match his astuteness against all the devices for his destruction that human ingenuity can invent.

Lloyd describes the amenities and virtues that adorned the character of a wolf cub belonging to Madame Bedoire; how it guarded her premises, made friends with her dog, went walking with its mistress, played with her children, and howled when she did not caress it. The biography of this blessed infant was written by a lady; Lloyd merely inserts the account. It had to be shot when it was a year old. He himself had a young she-wolf whose most noticeable actions seemed to be connected with her endeavors to get pigs within reach of where she was chained. “When she saw a pig in the vicinity of her kennel, she, evidently with the intention of putting him off his guard, would throw herself on her side or back, roll, wag her tail most lovingly, and look like innocence personified”; but if, as occasionally happened, the pig’s mind was impressed with these artless ebullitions of youthful joy, and it came near enough, the creature was done for. While Sir Edward Belcher’s ship lay in winter quarters a wolf haunted her vicinity. He sat under her stern, he beguiled the dogs away, he drove off all the game. Then they tried to kill or capture him, but in vain. When pieces of meat were fixed at the muzzles of loaded muskets, he fired off the guns and ate the bait. Seated upon a hill, just out of range, this “charmed wolf,” as the men called him, “narrowly watched the proceedings of those engaged in further schemes for his destruction, and exulted possibly in his superior wisdom.” Belcher’s sailors began to believe this animal to be one of the officers of Sir John Franklin’s lost ship, the _Erebus_. Dr. Rae reports the case of a wolf that cut the string fastened to the trigger of a gun before taking the meat placed in front of it. And Audubon relates that wolves watch fishermen in the northern lakes, pull their lines up, and appropriate the catch. They gnaw through heavy timber into caches and undermine dead-falls. They uncover and spring steel traps, and are as difficult to beguile as the wolverene--it is impossible to say more. Captain Lyon’s crew caught a wolf in a trap that pretended to be dead when the men who set it arrived. Wherever men carry firearms the wolf appreciates their effectiveness, and is perfectly well aware that his coat will not turn a rifle-ball. But while this exercises an obvious influence upon his general behavior, in most cases the ability to see the movements of his enemy seems to lessen his dread of what may happen. If several are together when fired at, they will scamper off; but it is very common to see them turn when they think themselves safe, and regard their adversary with strict attention.

Upon the whole, it is doubtful whether wolves have been much diminished in numbers anywhere, except in places where the country has become thickly settled. While these creatures have solitudes to fall back upon, they make use of those great advantages in the struggle for existence which they possess. Their speed, endurance, and hardihood, the number produced at a birth, and their exceeding sagacity, qualify this race to fight the battle of life, hard as it is in most instances, in a manner that but few animals of any kind can equal.

There are two reasons why, in the midst of fragmentary notices and romances innumerable, authentic annals of American frontier life are so meagre in their accounts of what these beasts have done. The first is that our earlier settlers were men such as they have encountered nowhere else, and the wolves were soon cowed. In the second place, perils threatened those living on the border, which were so much more imminent than any which ever became actual through the agency of wolves that these beasts came to be disregarded. Those depredations and murders which they really perpetrated were only perpetuated in tradition, and when survivals of this kind came to be recast by writers who, besides being unacquainted with all the facts, knew nothing about the animals themselves, they at once assumed a form that was stamped with all the incongruities of crude invention, and served only to conceal more effectually that portion of truth upon which these poor fictions were constructed.

It is probable that all, who, having really observed the character of those wolves that inhabit what were once the buffalo ranges of the Northwest, and then going southward made the acquaintance of that large, yellowish-red wolf called the _lobo_, in Mexico, will admit that there is much difference between them. In the Sierra Madre two wolves are commonly considered to be a match for a man armed as these people usually are, and unless the whole population have conspired together for the purpose of propagating falsehoods on this particular subject, it must be believed that the lobo is often guilty of manslaughter. It has not happened to the writer to be personally cognizant of the death of any victim of theirs, but riding westward one day through the forests of that mountainous country lying between Durango and the Pacific coast, in the interval between two divisions of a large train of _arrieros_ separated from each other by a distance of several miles, a woman and two children, boy and girl, were met. Struck by the beauty of the little girl, and knowing the way to be unsafe, some conversation took place in which the mother made light of those dangers suggested, and declined, with a profusion of thanks, an offer to see the party safe to her sister’s rancho in a neighboring valley. They had only a little distance to go along the ridge, she said, and would then soon descend to their place of destination. The wolves were like devils, it was true, but robbers were worse, and she had many times crossed there from her home without meeting with either. In short,--_muchissimas gracias Señor, y todos los santos, etc., etc. Adios_!

All of them were devoured a very short time after. Their clothes and bones were found scattered on the trail which they had not yet left before they were killed. The muleteers in rear who found these fragments collected and buried them, putting up the usual frail cross which is to be seen along this route, literally by scores.

This term _lobo_ is indiscriminately applied in Spanish America to creatures that bear little resemblance to one another. The _guara_ of Brazil is known under that name, an inoffensive, vegetable-eating animal, in every respect unlike the wolf in character and habits, and, according to Dr. Lund, specifically distinct from it in having the second and third vertebræ of its neck characteristically elongated. Emmanuel Liais, however (“Climats, Géologie, Faune du Brésil”), states the chief contrasts between those creatures in question succintly, as follows: “_Au point de vue du régime alimentaire, les deux espèces du genre Canis les plus éloignées sont le loup commun d’Europe, animal féroce et sauguinaire, et la plus carnivore de toutes les espèces du genre, et l’Aguara ou Guara du Brésil--Canis Jubatus de Demarest, appelé à Minas-Geraes trés-improprement Lobo (nom portugais du Loup), et décrit par la plupart des ouvrages de mammologie comme le loup du Brésil. C’est cependent le moins carnivore de tous les chiens connus, et sa nourriture préférée consiste en substances végétales._”

As has been said, the wolf does not reach its highest development in hot countries. Wolves may be dangerous and destructive within low latitudes, as is the case both in America and Asia, but it will be found that when this occurs their range is generally confined to elevated regions in those provinces. Major H. Bevan (“Thirty Years in India”) states that “wolves are amongst the most noxious tenants of the jungles around Nagpore, and they annually destroy many children; but they do not commit such ravages as in northern India.” The same is true of the “giant wolf,” _Lupus Gigas_, that Townsend and other naturalists described as a distinct species; but this brute which has so evil a reputation in the highlands of Mexico, “the red Texan wolf,” as Audubon calls it, does not extend in the United States to the northern prairies; it only exists as a variety of the common species in the lower Mississippi valley, and farther south.

Audubon remarks that this form of the common species has “the same sneaking, cowardly, yet ferocious disposition” as other wolves; nevertheless those anecdotes with which he intersperses his descriptions are certainly not calculated to foster the belief that his impression agrees with facts.

There are certain traits and habits belonging to wolves at large which may now be brought together. They are not by any means strictly nocturnal animals, but very commonly prowl by night, and in places where large packs assemble; most of what has with truth been said against them occurred under cover of darkness. By all accounts, it is amidst gloom and storm, while the _buran_ rages over the arctic tundra, that troops of these fierce creatures do their worst among Yakut and Tungoo reindeer herds. Caribou are not herded, and have been but little observed by those who could give any information upon such a point as this. Everywhere, a wolf is destructive, fierce, wary and sagacious. Moreover, it will often become aggressive and audacious in the highest degree, when circumstances contribute to foster the development and facilitate the expression of its natural character. It is the typical wild beast of its family, and if it is not in many instances sanguinary and prone to take the offensive, there is a much better explanation for abstention from violence than that of natural cowardice. Wolves have far too much sense not to know what they can gain with least exposure to loss; and no beast of prey, that is sane, and not driven to desperation, ever proceeds upon any other principle than this. Given the existence of mind, those accidents by which mind is modified, and relative differences in degree among its qualities, must also be admitted. Comparative stupidity, evenness of temper, want of enterprise, tameness and timidity, undoubtedly distinguish wolf and wolf, as they do all carnivores. Still this would not account for the conventional wolf, or explain the anomaly of its imaginary character, or show why, or on what grounds, it is maintained that there should exist so great an incongruity in nature as an animal unadjusted mentally and yet adapted physically to a predatory life; that has at the same time the disposition of a tiger and the harmlessness of a lamb, that lives by violence, yet shrinks from every struggle, that maintains itself by the exercise of powers it must be fully conscious of possessing, and is constantly debarred from the results which it might attain through their exercise by causeless apprehension. This is very nearly what must be meant when a beast of prey is called a coward.

Wolves stalk their prey, ambush it, either alone or in collusion with others that drive the game, and they also run it down. The jaw is very powerful and formidably armed, and in proportion to its bulk this creature is exceedingly strong. A wolf, though structurally carnivorous, will eat anything--fish, flesh, or fowl, fresh or putrid, animal or vegetal. When he has gorged to the limit of his capacity, if anything remains it is commonly dragged to some place of concealment and buried. Then the brute lies down until the apathy induced by surfeit passes away. Wolves hunt both by sight and scent, by day and night. They will certainly interbreed with dogs, producing fertile offspring; and they may be domesticated. But as they grow older the characteristics germane to their savage natures assert themselves. It is said by Godman that “when kept in close confinement, and fed on vegetable matter, the common wolf becomes tame and harmless, ... shy, restless, timid.” If he had said it became _ill_, the statement would have been more conformable with fact. No such interruption of the normal course of life is possible without an impairment of health, both bodily and mental. Carnivorous animals are not to be turned into vegetarians at will, nor any creature’s energies thwarted and cramped without distortion and atrophy.

Wolves no doubt can swim, but it is certain that a wolf seldom voluntarily takes to water in which he cannot wade. Audubon saw one swimming, and others have witnessed the like. Still all accounts represent these beasts as stopping short in pursuit on the bank of a stream. Naturalists say that the length of life in this species is twenty years, and it has been recorded also that they do not become gray with age. It looks like a purility to repeat what has been gravely reported more than once; namely, that when wolves have plenty to eat they get fat, become lazy, and are not so aggressive as under contrary conditions. On the other hand, nothing is more common than to find writers explaining every act of audacity as due to hunger. Most probably it is; they would hardly go hunting while in a state of repletion. But the question is, how these authorities find out the exact state of their dietaries, and can be certain that they must be starving before they will attack the wild Asiatic ox or American moose; also how much less food is required, to urge them on to assail a party of men.

In seasons of scarcity wolves of the northern plains prey upon prairie-dogs, ground-squirrels, hares, foxes, badgers, etc.; small creatures that offer no resistance, and which it is only difficult to catch. At the same time they hunt the large game of North America, and although, much to the disgust of a certain class of writers, the common wolf, which weighs about a hundred pounds, does not select a buffalo bull in the best fighting trim as an object for attack when a less formidable animal of this species can be found, or meet the moose, that often stands six feet at the withers, or indeed any creature that can kill him, in such a way as to give it the best opportunity for doing so, he often has to fight and frequently comes to grief. But they “give every human being a wide berth,” says Roosevelt, and it would be strange indeed if they did not, since none are apt to be encountered who, according to the wolf’s experience, are unprepared for offensive action, or who do not make it their business in those parts to destroy him. This fact has been completely realized by wolves of the plains, and it is for this reason that in these latitudes they have now become, what Colonel Dodge asserts that they are, “of all carnivorous animals of equal size and strength, the most harmless to beasts, and the least dangerous to man.”

A wolf’s structure is not by any means so well adapted to destructive purposes as that of the larger _Felidæ_. No species of the genus _Canis_ has either the teeth, claws or muscles which belong to cats. A predatory animal may, and often does, make an error in judgment, but there is one thing that it never does, and that is, to attack deliberately knowing beforehand that it must fight fairly for victory, and that the issue is quite as likely to be fatal to itself as to its destined prey. A single wolf is not a match for those large animals it destroys; and when, in virtue of what Professor Romanes calls the “collective instinct,” odds have been taken against them, they succumb before a combined assault.

Where parties of “wolfers,” as they are called, pass the winter in placing poisoned meat in their way, and in localities in which they abound, destroy them for their skins by hundreds, wolves would need to be much less sagacious than they are, if what was noticed by Lord Milton and his companion was not true as a matter of course. “These animals,” the account says, “are so wary and suspicious that they will not touch a bait lying exposed, or one that has been recently visited.” John Mortimer Murphy (“Sporting Adventures in the Far West”) had seven years’ experience of the way in which wolves were shot, trapped, poisoned and coursed. The conclusion he came to from those observations which he relates so well, was that the wolf in such localities, “large, gaunt, and fierce as it looks, is one of the greatest cowards known.” He omitted to mention--but Godman has rectified the oversight--that wolves carry their natural cowardice to such an extent, and are so exceedingly dubious concerning what man may do, that a few pinches of powder scattered about dead game, or an article of clothing left near it,--in short, any evidence of the presence of a human being will prevent them from approaching it.

There are several ways of writing natural history, and this is one of them. It would seem, nevertheless, that if a plan could be adopted for looking upon the general organization of wild beasts as in a great measure determining their characters, and for considering, if possible, anomalous traits as most probably intimately connected with peculiarities in their situation, we might no longer feel confounded at finding that sentient creatures are not the same under dissimilar circumstances. If brutes could be considered to have some knowledge of themselves, to act like brutes and to feel like them, without reference to any human opinions whatever, forthcoming literature of this kind would be benefited.

In those parts of the world where the wolf comes in contact with people not well prepared to receive him, his attitude towards mankind is aggressive. In Eastern Europe, for example, Austria, Hungary, Bohemia, and through the Danubian states generally, wolves occupy quite a distinguished position for dangerousness, and the inhabitants regard them with any other feeling than that of contempt. Captain Spencer (“Turkey, Russia, the Black Sea, and Circassia”), while passing through that vast forest which separates the more settled tracts of Moldavia from the Buckowina, was besieged in a half-ruined chalet with his companions, and the pack continued their attack all night, and lost heavily.

The coyote,--_Canis latrans_,--that thieving creature which is often found intermingled with the gray and other coated wolves on the great plains of North America, has been by some writers--Colonel Dodge, for example--discriminated from the prairie wolf as a separate species. Those differences which exist between them, however, have little classificatory value. Contrasts in size, dissimilarities in color, marking, and the growth of hair, are all seen in the common wolf, of which this is “a distinct but allied species,” with northern and southern varieties.

“There is,” says Schoolcraft, “something doleful as well as terrific in the howling of wolves.” When people speak of the jackal’s howl, they commonly call it “unearthly,” but a coyote’s voice is much more singularly diabolical, and his intonations are so hideously suggestive of all that is weird and devilish, that it stands by itself among natural sounds, and cannot be compared with the outcry of any other creature. Murphy describes it as follows: “The voice seems to be a combination of the long howl of the wolf and the yelp of the fox; but so distinctly marked is it from either, that, once heard, it is never forgotten. The coyote has the strange peculiarity of making the utterance of one sound like that of many; and should two or three try their larynxes at the same time, persons would fancy that a large pack was giving tongue in chorus. The cry appears to be divided into two parts. It first begins with a deep, long howl, then runs rapidly up into a series of barks, and terminates in a high scream, issued in prolonged jerks.” According to conventional opinions, elephants among wild animals, and dogs among those that have been domesticated, occupy the highest places in order of intelligence. The author does not believe this to be the case with respect to the first named species, and so far as pure intellect goes “Die reinen Vernunft,” no dog can probably surpass _Canis latrans_. Professor Huxley also reports that he can find no essential difference between their skulls. While these animals may be equal, however, in absolute capacity, the coyote, considered according to civilized standards of manners, is the kind of creature that if any dog were to take after, he would be incontinently shot or hanged.

His idea of good conduct is to get what he can honestly procure when driven to straightforward courses, but by preference to steal it, as being less troublesome. He is astute beyond comparison in nefarious practices, and has sense enough to howl with derision (as he sometimes seems to do) if it could be explained to him that mankind were capable of judging his behavior according to any other rule of life than his own. _Homo sapiens_, in a highly evolved state, is imbued with the truly noble idea that he is the centre of creation, and that all living things are admirable in proportion as they approach himself. He calls the coyote a “miserable cur,” “a barking thief,” and says sarcastically that the brute has kleptomania. Savage man, on the contrary, esteems him greatly. The two are much alike in many respects. We have already seen that this little wolf has been adopted as the tutelar of gentes among Pueblo Indians, and southern tribes of the Tinneh stock, and its prominence is scarcely less with those of the northwest coast of America. They honor the coyote; their myths and folk-lore record its good qualities and wisdom. To them it is the incarnation of a deity or a demon (these are nearly the same), and it is never killed, for fear that ill luck might be sent by the spirit of which this animal is the representative.

Under these happy auspices coyotes hang around native encampments and villages, interbreed with Indian dogs, grow fat on salmon cast upon river banks in the spawning season, hunt all that smaller game which their more powerful relations resort to for supplies only when hard pressed, and omit to take advantage of no opportunity to gain possession of provisions which are not theirs. The opinion they have of the human race is that it exists for their advantage, and mankind, further than it contributes to their support, is an object of indifference to them.