Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 24.djvu/669

Rh WOLF 629 hodophylax) may also be distinct, although, except for its smaller size and shorter legs, it is scarcely distinguishable from the common species. Though generally distributed throughout the Indian peninsula, the wolf is not found in Ceylon nor in Burmah and Siam. The ordinary colour of the wolf is a yellowish or fulvous grey, but specimens have been met with almost pure white and others entirely black. In northern countries the fur is longer and thicker, and the animal generally larger and more powerful than in the southern portion of its range. Its habits are similar everywhere, and it is still, and has been from time imme morial, especially known to man in all the countries it inhabits as the devastator of his flocks of sheep. Wolves do not catch their prey by lying in ambush, or stealing up close to it, and making a sudden spring as the cat tribe do, but by fairly running it down in open chase, which their speed and remarkable endurance enable them to do, and usually, except during summer, when the young families of cubs are being separately provided for by their parents, they assemble in troops or packs, and by their combined and persevering efforts are able to overpower and kill even such great animals as the American bison. It is singular that such closely allied species as the domestic dog and the Arctic fox are among the favourite prey of wolves, and, as is well known, children and even full-grown people are not unfrequently the objects of their attack when pressed by hunger. Notwithstanding the proverbial ferocity of the wolf in a wild state, many instances are recorded of animals taken when quite young becoming perfectly tame and attached to the person who has brought them up, when they exhibit many of the ways of a dog. They can, however, rarely be trusted by strangers. The history of the wolf in the British Isles, and its gradual extirpation, has been thoroughly investigated by Harting in his work on Extinct British Animals, from which the following account is abridged. To judge by the osteological remains which the re searches of geologists have brought to light, there was perhaps scarcely a county in England or Wales in which, at one time or another, wolves did not abound, while in Scotland and Ireland they must have been still more numerous. The fossil remains which have been discovered in Britain are not larger than, nor in any way to be distinguished from, those of European wolves of the present day. Wolf-hunting was a favourite pursuit of the ancient Britons as well as of the Anglo-Saxons. In Athelstan s reign these animals abounded to such an extent in Yorkshire that a retreat was built by one Acehorn, at Flixton, near Filey, wherein travellers might seek refuge if attacked by them. As is well known, great efforts were made by King Edgar to reduce the number of wolves in the country, but, notwithstanding the annual tribute of 300 skins paid to him during several years by the king of Wales, he was not altogether so successful as has been commonly imagined. In the reign of Henry III. wolves were sufficiently numerous in some parts of the country to induce the king to make grants of land to various individuals upon the express condition of their taking measures to destroy these animals wherever they could be found. In Edward II. s time, the king s forest of the Peak, in Derbyshire, is especially mentioned as infested with wolves, and it was not until the reign of Henry VII. (1485-1509) that wolves appear to have become finally extinct in England. This, however, is rather a matter of inference from the cessation of all mention of them in local records than from any definite evidence of their extirpation. Their last retreat was probably in the desolate wolds of Yorkshire. In Scotland, as might be supposed from the nature of the country, the wolf maintained its hold for a much longer period. There is a well-known story of the last of the race being killed by Sir Ewen Cameron of Lochiel in 1680, but there is evidence of wolves having survived in Suthcrlandshire and other parts into the following century (perhaps as late as 1743), though the date of their final extinction cannot be accurately fixed. In Ireland, in Cromwell s time, wolves were particularly troublesome, and said to be increas ing in numbers, so that special measures were taken for their destruc tion, such as the offering of large rewards for their heads, and the prohibition (in 1652) of the exportation of &quot;wolf-dogs,&quot; the large dogs used for hunting the wolves. The active measures taken then and later reduced their numbers greatly, so that towards the end of the century they became scarce, but, as in the case of the sister island, the date of their final disappearance cannot now be ascertained. It has been placed, upon the evidence of somewhat doubtful traditions, as late as 1766. It is entirely owing to their insular position that the British Islands have been able to clear themselves of these formidable and destructive animals, for the neighbouring country of France, with no natural barriers to prevent their incursions from the vast conti nent to the east, is still liable every winter to visits from numbers of them, as the following figures indicate. Government rewards were paid in 1883 for 1316 wolves destroyed, in 1884 for 1035, in 1885 for 900, and in 1886 for 760. The increase of the reward just before the first-named date seems thus to have had some effect in lessening the number. (W. H. F. ) WOLF, FRIEDRICH AUGUST (1759-1824), was born in 1759 at Hainrode, a little village not far from Nordhausen, in the province of Hanover. His father, who was village schoolmaster and organist, was in his way an enthusiast in education, and gave his son whatever advantage is to be gained by the earliest possible cultivation. In time the family removed to Nordhausen, and there young Wolf went to the grammar school, where he soon acquired all the Latin and Greek that the masters could teach him, besides learning French, Italian, Spanish, and music. This, however, was in the earlier and (as he himself regarded it) the idler part of his schooltime. He pre sently took his education into his own hands, devoted himself entirely to classics, borrowed books wherever he could, and rapidly stored his young and powerful memory with their contents. The precocity of his attainments was only equalled by the force of will and confidence in his own powers which characterized him throughout life. After two years of solitary study, at the age of eighteen, Wolf went to the university of Gottingen. His first act there was a prophecy one of those prophecies which spring from the conscious power to bring about their fulfilment. He had to choose his &quot;faculty,&quot; and chose one which then existed only in his own mind, the faculty of &quot;philology.&quot; What is even more remarkable, the omen was accepted. He carried his point, and was enrolled as he desired. Wolf s relations with Heyne, who was then the chief ornament of Gottingen, form an unpleasant chapter, which may well be passed over here. Heyne was a scholar of little force or originality, but he was one of those who, by their power of assimilating and transmitting the thoughts of others, often rise to the highest reputation. Wolf soon left him, and fell back upon the university library, from which he borrowed with his old avidity. During the years 1779-83 Wolf was a schoolmaster, first at Ilfeld, then at Osterode. His success as a teacher was striking, and he found time to publish an edition of the Symposium, which excited notice, and led to his pro motion to a chair in the Prussian university of Halle. The moment was a critical one in the history of educa tion. The literary impulse of the Renaissance was almost spent ; scholarship had become dry and trivial. A new school, that of Locke and Rousseau, sought to make teach ing more modern and more human, but at the sacrifice of mental discipline and scientific aim. Wolf was eager to throw himself into the contest on the side of anti quity. In Halle (1783-1807), by the force of his will and the enlightened aid of the ministers of Frederick the Great, he was able to carry out his long-cherished ideas, and found the science of philology. By one of England s insular aberrations, the word &quot; philology &quot; threatens to.be confined to the study of the forms of language. Wolf defined it to be &quot;knowledge of human nature as exhibited in antiquity.&quot; The matter of such a science, he held, must be sought in the history and education of some highly cultivated nation, to be studied in written remains, works of art, and what ever else bears the stamp of national thought or skill. It has therefore to do with both history and language, but primarily as a science of interpretation, in which historical facts and linguistic facts take their place in an organic whole. Such was the ideal which Wolf had in his mind when he established the philological seminarium at Halle.