The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1870-07-23
WOLVES IN FRANCE.

The traveller who has never before quilted
England experiences q novel sensation when,
on finding himself in the neighborhoOd of a
French forest, he is told that there are wolves
in it. The sensation is considerably height
ened when one of the said wolves makes his
appearance. and your horse becomes aware
of the fact and sets off as il the carriage be-
hind him had suddenly become independent
of the law Of gravity. We remeHber driving
late on winters night, when the snow lay
thick upon the ground, along the dark skirts
of an immense forest in France, when the
horse became prey to the most violent agi-
tation, and might perhaps have become
prey to something else if he had not
set off at full gallop. On look
ing round to discover the cause
of his emotion we saw couple of wolves,
dark against the snow of the next field, trot-
ting swiftly in the same direction as ourselves.
A lady who happened to be in the vehicle
always declnres when she tells the story, that
she saw their eyes gare but this detail,
though very effective, is no doubt due to the
creative power of susceptible and excited
imagination, and the reader is not required
to accept il as an article of faith. There is q
pass amongst the hills of the Morvan where a
road winds along the edge of precipice and
is guarded only by low parapet. Its curves
are exceedingly rapid, and as the rock
has had to be blasted to make way for
the road, the side next the hill . is a
wall of perpendicular cliff jutting
out in promontories like the Yorkshire
ftoast, whilst the road turns sharply round
there points, and curves almost as sharply in
the little holows or bays between them. The
valley through which the road passes is a mar
row cash in an enormous forest; to be literally
accurate the said forest extends for eighty
miles with short occasional Interruptions and
where the above. mentioned road passesit is ten
miles in breadth. Now it happened that one
night in winter gentleman, driving by him
self down this road, was pursued by wolves.
his horse, as horses usually do on such occa-
sions, became perfectly uncontrolla-
BILE, yet happily kept the middle
of the road, and the vehicle went
swinging round the sharp curves like de-
tached railway truck down an incline, with
the wolves behind it, To the right parapet
two feet high, with precipitous slope of four
or five hundred feet studded with sharp rocks
and pine trees; to the left great masses of
blasted rock jutting out dangerously into the
awkward curves of the road. Twenty minutes
of frantic gallop got the driver clear Of the
wood, and the wolves followed him no fur
ther; but the adventure had not been without
danger, and the hero of it has ever since felt
strong objection to wolf haunted forests in
the long nights of winter.
hundred other wolf anecdotes might be
collected, some of them rather ludicrous than
horrible, others horrible enough. Sometimes
an old woman is followed steadily by dis
agreeable-looking wolf, who puts his paws on
her shoulders, and grievously alarms her, yet
does her no bodily harm; sometimes the crea-
ture is less polite, and partly eats the old
woman. AS a rule, however, he is not very
dangerous to the human race; and the shep-
herdesses, when he invades their hocks, will
not unfrequently salute him with kicks from
their wooden shoes and the choicest maledic-
tions in their vocabulary. The amount of
which a Of
tion to the actual harm perpetrated by him.
He disquiets the minds of all keepers of
sheep, and causes the farmers anxiety even
about their horses, which are often kept in
the stable when wolf has been seen in the
neighborhood. The wolf Is q nuisance rather
than sublimely terrible enemy, but he is a
nuisance. And English people very naturally
ask why the French do not get rid of him.
The answer to this question has been lately
given by Nj. dEsterno. The wolf is pet.
He is one of the best preserved animals in
France. He is beloved as foxes are beloved
in Leicestershire. There are official wolf
killers gentlemen who are wof-exterm-
nators Just as our masters of fox hounds are
fox-exterminators. Under their benign
patronage the wolf keeps his place, and
dwindles not from the face of the country.
OF late there is reason to believe his family
is on the increase. Nevertheless it is not SO
numerous is generally believed AS there
Is reward every WOl klllou, ana as tue
reward is seldom left unclaimed, there are
regular statistics of the destruction of these
animals all over the country. The number
of old wolves killed every year by hunters
does not exceed three hundred. They also
kill about fifteen hundred young ones. M.
dEsterno bases a calculation upon these data,
in which, however, it seems to us that there
is one great element of uncertainty. He
infers that the number of old wolves that die
of disease and age must be equal to those
killed by sportsmen, and he puts them down
as precisely equal-namely, 300 old wolves
killed and 800 old wolves dying natural
deaths. This seems rather a summary way
of settling the question; indeed, the statistics
about the natural deaths of wolves are wholly
imaginary. However, assuming that $50 old
wolves die annually one way or another, it is
clear that these must be replaced by younger
ones, since the race generally shows no sign
of diminishing. But there is another un
certainty in Nj. d'Esternos statistics
namely, that about the deaths of young
wolves. Fifteen hundred of these are
killed, and to these NJ. d'Esterno
adds 775 as dying from other causes
making in round numbers total of 2300;
these, with the young ones which live to re-
place the old ones give total of 2900 as the
annual produce What is the number, then
of old wolves in year when there are 290t
births? A she-wolf brings forth on the ave
rage litter of five whelps. This gives 5S(
pairs of old wolves. But amongst the vol
tribe there is an excess of ten per cent. o
the male population, so that there are ten ole
bachelors for every hundred fathers of fami
lies; then there are she-wolves habituall,