It is a curious circumstance, that the wild children, whether of Europe or Asia, have never been found above a certain age. They do not grow into adults in the woods. Colonel Sleeman thinks their lives may be cut short by their living exclusively on animal food; but to some of them, as we have seen, a vegetable diet has been habitual. The probability seems to be, that with increasing years, their added boldness and consciousness of strength may lead them into fatal adventures with their brethren of the forest. As for the protection of the animal by which they were originally nurtured becoming powerless from age, which is another hypothesis, that supposes too romantic a system of patronage and dependence. The head of the family must have several successive series of descendants to care for after the arrival of the stranger, and it is far more probable that the wild boy is obliged to turn out with his playmates, when they are ordered to shift for themselves, than that he alone remains a fixture at home. That protection of some kind at first is a necessary condition of his surviving at all, there can be no manner of doubt, although it does not follow that a wolf is always the patron. The different habits of some of the European children we have mentioned, shew a totally different course of education. If, for instance, they had been nurtured by wolves, they would no more have learned to climb trees than to fly in the air. As for the female specimen we have mentioned, hers was obviously an exceptional case. She was lost, as appeared from her own statement, when old enough to work at some employment, and a club she used as a weapon was one of her earliest recollections.