eir several
characteristics, will never perish, never become extinct, except
together. But the Jews decline to acknowledge the relationship thus
assumed and the paradoxical connexion between themselves and this race
of animals; they deny that the idiosyncrasies are in any degree similar,
and persist in placing this luminous idea of Fourrier's on a level with
that of the sea of lemonade, which will, according to the same author,
one day surround our planet.
The bones and teeth of wolves are often discovered, as I have already
said, amongst the _debris_ of the antediluvian world.
In the Holy Scriptures, too, there are several observations respecting
the wolf,--in them it is stated that he lives upon rapine, is violent,
cruel, bloody, crafty, and voracious; he seeks his prey by night, and
his sense of smell is wonderful. False teachers are described as wolves
in sheep's clothing; and the Prophet Habakkuk, speaking of the
Chaldeans, says, "Their horses are more fierce than the evening wolves."
And again, Isaiah, describing the peaceful reign of the Messiah,
writes,--"The wolf also shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard
shall lie down with the kid: and the calf and the young lion and the
fatling together, and a little child shall lead them."
The wolf varies in shape and colour, according to the country in which
it lives. In Asia, towards Turkey, this animal is reddish; in Italy,
quite red; in India, the one called the beriah is described as being of
a light cinnamon colour; yellow wolves, with a short black mane along
the entire spine, are found in the marshes of all the hot and temperate
regions of America. The fur of the Mexican wolf is one of the richest
and most valuable known. In the regions of the north the wolf is black,
and sometimes black and gray: others are quite white; but the black wolf
is always the fiercest. The black is also found in the south of Europe,
and particularly in the Pyrennees. Colonel Hamilton Smith relates an
anecdote illustrative of its great size and weight. At a _battue_ in the
mountains near Madrid, one of these wolves, which came bounding through
the high grass towards an English gentleman who was present, was so
large that he mistook it for a donkey; and whatever visions of a ride
home might have floated across his brain for the moment, right glad was
he on discovering his error, to see his ball take immediate effect.
In former days, the Spanish wolves congregated in large packs
|