Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 2, No. 12, May, 1851.Various
History
Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 2, No. 12, May, 1851.
Various
American literature -- Periodicals; Civilization -- Periodicals; Culture -- Periodicals
A curious notice of the existence of wolves and foxes in Scotland is
afforded in Bellenden's translation of Boetius.[3] "The wolffis are
right noisome to tame beastial in all parts of Scotland, except one part
thereof, named Glenmorris, in which the tame beastial gets little damage
of wild beastial, especially of tods (foxes); for each house nurses a
young tod certain days, and mengis (mixes) the flesh thereof, after it
be slain, with such meat as they give to their fowls or other small
beasts, and so many as eat of this meat are preserved two months after
from any damage of tods; for tods will eat no flesh that gusts of their
own kind." The last wolf killed in Scotland is said to have fallen by
the hand of Sir Ewen Cameron, about 1680; and singular to say, the skin
of this venerable quadruped may yet be in existence: in a catalogue of
Mr. Donnovan's sale of the London Museum, in April, 1818, there occurs
the following item, "Lot 832. Wolf, a noble animal 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."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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