When the trees are devoid of foliage and the snow covers the ground, when the forest is melancholy and cold, and the wolves famished with hunger, a rather original mode of taking them by night is adopted. A few days previously to the one appointed for the purpose, a large glade in the very thickest part of the forest having been selected, a carpenter and his assistant, with a well-furnished bag of tools, start for the spot. There, choosing some suitable trees, or branches of young pollards, they cut down a sufficient number, place them in the ground so as to form a hut of twelve yards square, leaving between each tree an interval of about four inches; strengthening the edifice by beams at the base, and boards nailed transversely seven feet from the ground. This open hut thus prepared, and which, at fifty paces distance, ought not, if well constructed, to be distinguishable from the trees, is left open to the inspection of the beasts of the forest for several nights in succession, in order that they, always suspicious of the most trifling circumstance, may get accustomed to it. Two or three ducks, a goose, and sometimes a sheep, are fastened during these nights near the hut, with a view of alluring the wolves and inducing them to visit the mansion. The day, or rather the appointed evening, having arrived (a star or moonlight night being selected), the assembled huntsmen, and a long line of servants, betake themselves to the forest, leading by the head four calves, and carrying with them a cask of cold meat, a hamper of wine, a box of cigars, and a horse-load of pale _cogniac_--a few camels and dromedaries added to this cavalcade, and one would have a complete picture of a tribe of Bedouins preparing to pass the Great Desert. Arrived in the forest about nightfall, and well and duly shut up in their Gibraltar of wood, the sportsmen may eat, drink, and smoke, and converse in an undertone; but a heavy fine is invariably inflicted on those who make the least noise. No one is permitted to sneeze, talk loud, or laugh; as to blowing one's nasal organ vigorously, the thing is absolutely forbidden; no one is allowed to have a cold, much less an influenza, for at least eight hours, and every sportsman is careful that the wine and the viands take each their proper line of road; if either should unfortunately diverge, the gentleman must choke rather than cough--as to the servants, they do every thing by gesture and signal; and woe betide the John that speaks--chance may be, his tongue is thrown to the wolves.