The Minds and Manners of Wild Animals: A Book of Personal Observations

The Status of the Gray Wolf. In America wolves rarely succeed in killing men, although they often follow men's trails in the hope of spoil of some kind. But there are exceptions. In 1912, around Lake Nipigon, Province of Ontario, Canada, there existed a reign of terror from wolves. The first man killed was a half-breed mail-carrier. Then, in December, another mail-carrier, who was working the lumber camps north of Lake Nipigon, was killed by wolves and completely devoured. The snow showed a terrible struggle, in which four large wolves had been killed by the carrier. In Russia and in France in the days preceding the use of modern breech-loading firearms, the gray wolves of Europe were very bold, and a great many people were killed by them. Killings by Wild Beasts in India. The killing by wild beasts of unarmed and defenseless native men, women and children in India is a very different matter from man-killing in resourceful and dangerous North America. The annual slaughter by wild beasts in Hindustan and British Burma is a fairly good index of the courage and aggressiveness of the parties of the first part. In India during the year 1878, in which we were specially interested, the totals were as follows: Persons killed by elephants, 33; tigers, 816; leopards, 300; bears, 94; wolves, 845; hyenas, 33; snakes, 16,812. Of course such slaughter as this by the ridiculous hyenas and the absurd sloth bears of India is possible only in a country wherein the swarming millions of people are universally defenseless, and children are superabundant.