Meyer’s Kleines konversations-lexikon:—Der wolf “ist häufig in Ost- und Nordeuropa, Mittel- und Nordasien, Nordamerika, seltener in Frankreich und Belgien, den Herden gefährlich, besonders in Russland.” Encyc. Brit., XXIV under _Wolf_:—In northern countries the wolf is generally larger and more powerful than in the southern portion of its range. Its habits are similar everywhere. It has from time immemorial been known to man in all the countries it inhabits as the devastator of his flocks of sheep. It has speed and remarkable endurance. They usually assemble in troops or packs, except in summer, and by their combined and persevering efforts are able to overpower and kill even such great animals as the American bison. Children and even grown people are not infrequently attacked by them when pressed for hunger. The ferocity of the wolf in the wild state is proverbial. Even when tamed, they can rarely be trusted by strangers. [13] Paul, Grundriss, III. 272. [14] Gustav Freytag, Bilder aus neuer zeit, Leipzig, 1904, p. 275 fol., speaking of the Polish borderlands, says: “Noch lebte das Landvolk in ohnmächtigem Kampf mit den Heerden der Wölfe, wenig Dörfer, welchen nicht in jedem Winter Menschen und Thiere decimirt wurden,” and in the same note 2, pp. 275-6:—“Als 1815 die gegenwärtige Provinz Posen an Preussen zurückfiel, waren auch dort die Wölfe eine Landplage. Nach Angaben der Posener Provinzialblätter wurden im Regierungsbezirk Posen vom 1. Sept. 1815 his Ende Februar 1816, 41 Wölfe erlegt, noch im Jahre 1819 im Kreise Wongrowitz 16 Kinder und 3 Erwachsene von Wölfen gefressen.” The werewolf superstition is an old one, a primitive one.[15] The point in common everywhere is the transformation of a living human being into an animal, into a wolf in regions where the wolf was common[16] into a lion, hyena or leopard in Africa, where these animals are common; into a tiger or serpent in India;[17] in other localities into other animals characteristic of the region.[18] Among Lapps and Finns occur transformations into the bear, wolf, reindeer, fish or birds; amongst many North Asiatic peoples, as also some American Indians, into the bear; amongst the latter also into the fox, wolf, turkey or owl; in South America, besides into a tiger or jaguar, also into a fish, or serpent. Most universal though it seems was the transformation into wolves or dogs.[19]