The months of September and October, the period for cub-hunting, afford capital sport. The young wolves are not like the old ones, strong enough to take a straight course, and they consequently can rarely do more than run a ring; when tired, which is soon the case, they retire backwards into some hole or under a large stone, where they show their teeth and await, with a juvenile courage worthy of a better fate, the onset of their assailants. The mode of separating the cubs from their mother, who, with maternal tenderness (for that feeling exists even in a wolf), always offers to sacrifice her life for her young, is by turning loose two or three bloodhounds. These first distract her attention, and then pursue her so closely that at last she thinks it prudent to decamp, and seek safety in flight; when these dogs have fairly got her away, and their deep music dies away in the distance, others are laid on the scent of the cubs, and the sport ceases only with the death of the litter. A young wolf may be tamed; but it is not wise to place much confidence in his civilization: with age he resumes his nature, becomes ferocious, and sooner or later, should the occasion present itself, will return to his native woods;--for as water always flows towards the river, so the wolf always returns to his kind. In the summer, the wolves, like the gypsies, have no fixed residence; they may then be met with in the standing barley or oats, the vineyards and fields; they sleep in the open country, and seldom seek the friendly shelter of the forest, except during the most scorching hours of the day. Towards the end of August I have often met them in the vineyards, apparently half drunk, scarcely able to walk, in short, quite unsteady on their legs, almost ploughing the ground up with their noses, and staring stupidly about them. Every well-kept vineyard ought to be as free from stones as possible, and therefore the peasants, when they weed, dig a trench about the vines, or prune them, always remove at the same time whatever stones or flints they may meet with; these are piled at the end of the vineyard in a heap of about twenty feet square and six feet high, called a _meurger_. On these _meurgers_ the breezes of summer waft every description of seed, and they are consequently soon covered with verdure, shrubs, brambles, and wild roses, which from a distance give them the appearance of a small copse or thicket. These elevated and shady spots are the favourite retreats of game in the middle of the day; here they love to repose and take their _siesta_ in the cool--here the red partridges meet to have a gossip--hither the young rabbits scuttle to recover their various alarms, and the trembling hare also squats and conceals herself the moment a dog or a gun appears in the adjoining vineyard. Of course these green mounds have a corresponding value in the eyes of the sportsmen, who always find in them something to put up.