WOLVES AND BEARS.

Taranaki Herald, Volume LX, Issue 143786, 9 May 1912, Page 7

WOLVES AND BEARS.

THE EFFECT OF CIVILISATION. Air. Ernest Thompson Soton spoko last month in Loudon on the changes in tho habits of animals which have taken place under the influence of civilisation. AA'olves, ho said, would never attack a human being, nor even do more than sniff at a lamb if it_ was led with a string by a young child. How, then, did those fearful stories .of famishing wolves and their human prey come from Russia and elsewhere? The truth was that the wolves had been educated. They had a contempt for man armed only with a club, but they had learnt to dread firearms, and wherever it was reported that they had attacked human beings it would be found that it had occurred in districts where the use of firearms was prohibited. In North America they' were almost exterminated till a few of'the heroes of the race discovered the hunters’ method of dropping poisoned meat on the trail and instructed their fellows. In the Rockies the wolves had learned all that could be done hy human guile, and had again become a pest to be driven out only by taking tho meanest advantage of their high civilisation. They were pure monogamists, and not to bo destroyed by any other agency than love of their young. . The grizzlv bear bad also become civilised, and would run like a rabbit from a human being on a trail where formerly it was given the widest berth. Of the bear heroes Air. Seton said that in their old age they suffered from rheumatism and at regular periods they made for the hot sulphur streams. AATien life had become unbearable it had been found, in some instances vouched for by the American Geological Survey, that tbev commit suicide by inhaling carbon dioxide in one of the American ravines.