Chapter V

Standardized Wolves

THOSE WHO WANT TO BELIEVE THAT WOLVES DO NOT RUN IN packs should read only the first two-thirds of this chapter. For believing in wolf-packs, read the sections “Crumbs for Believers” and “Wolves for Posterity.” The section “Wolves and Babes” can be read safely by believers and non-believers, for these are an entirely different (though standard) species and the nursing complex, save for one classic exception, seems to be confined to Hindu wolves.

To read all sections may prove not merely difficult but also confusing—may we hope even befuddling.

******

Everybody knows that wolves run in packs. One of the standard definitions of pack is: “A large number of predatory animals, such as wolves, banded together for the purpose of hunting their prey.”

That used to be an undisputed statement of the case. But now there is an argument about whether any wolf-pack ever really existed, with the scientists nearly all on one side, the general public nearly all on the other, and the sportsmen divided about half and half.

On the affirmative side we have the undoubted fact that “everybody knows,” especially in Russia, that wolves do run in packs. If you want to refresh your mind as to what Russian wolf-packs are believed to be like, you can do so easily and pleasantly by turning to Willa Cather’s My Antonía, page 63. The people Miss Cather is going to feed to her wolves are the very diet to which Russian wolves are most accustomed—a wedding party. There are six sleighs drawn by three horses each and carrying from six to twelve passengers. There is starlight on the snow and the road is through a forest. The first distant wolf howl does not drown the tinkle of the sleigh bells or the laughter of the wedding guests. But the rallying cry is answered from many sides, the leaders of the pack draw nearer, and fear grips every heart. The bride sobs on the groom’s bosom and the drivers lash their horses to breakneck speed. The rear sleigh upsets, the passengers sprawl out over the snow and the wolves are on top of them in a moment. The screams of horses being eaten alive are more dreadful than the shrieks of people whose entrails are being torn out. The cries of terror from the remaining sleighs are as loud as the cries of pain from the dying. The wolves are silent now—they have other work to do.

And so the story goes on for sleigh after sleigh in Miss Cather’s story, and in all the typical stories, until only the bridal sleigh is left. About forty or fifty people and fifteen horses have now been eaten, but the wolves are still hungry and going strong. There are hundreds of them, you see, and wolves have proverbially good appetites. Nothing will save the last sleigh but throwing the bride to the pack. This Miss Cather accordingly does, and so do half the other authors of tales. But it seldom happens that quite everybody is eaten. Somebody has to be saved, to give the narrator a chance to portray the survivor’s life of shame and remorse through many effective pages that lead to a distant and friendless grave.

Such tales as Miss Cather’s we usually consider to be “true in spirit” only, since they occur in novels, but we take them for sober fact when we read them in books of travel or in newspapers. The press stories excel the books in verisimilitude, for they tell us what is said to have happened yesterday or last week. They give the names of places that are on every map, they frequently mention the widow and orphaned children, they sometimes tell that the funeral of the fragments left by the wolves was conducted by the home lodge of Masons. There is every detail to prove that what you see in the Sun (or the Bee or the American) is really so.

If you look in the index to the news published by the New York Times, you will discover scores of authentic-looking wolf-pack stories. I have the space to reproduce here only a sample:

WOLVES DEVOUR 3 MEN IN NORTHERN ONTARIO

An Elderly White Trapper and Two Indians Fall Victims to a Horde of Hungry Beasts

Port Arthur, Ont., Dec. 27—A great roving band of hungry timber wolves has devoured three men.... Last Saturday an elderly trapper left his cabin in the woods seventy miles north of Ignace to mush down to the settlement for his Christmas mail.... There was no mail, however, and the old man said he would come back Christmas morning. At noon he had not arrived. The postmaster sent two Indians to follow the trail....

About two miles from the settlement the Indians found a spot pounded down in the snow. There was blood. Bits of dog harness torn to shreds were scattered about. In the midst of them the Indians found human bones. They hastened back to report their discovery. The lure of the bounty on wolves, however, urged the Indians to take the trail again, with extra ammunition. They sped behind the dog team into the woods as the villagers waved good-bye. They did not return.

Yesterday a new searching party departed. They found another patch trodden in the snow, with much more blood, about two miles from the first. The two guns the Indians had carried were lying in the crimsoned snow. Scattered about were bones, bits of clothing and empty shells.

The carcasses of sixteen dead wolves—some half eaten—lay stretched in a circle about the remains of the two Indian hunters.

I quote from the New York Times of December 28, 1922. The story, from what is justly considered one of the world’s greatest and most reliable newspapers, gives proof of the cunning no less than of the ferocity of the North American wolf. Judging from the evidence, the pack must still have been hungry when they got through eating the trapper (perhaps he was small and skinny), so they lay in wait to finish their meal on the search party, which they evidently knew was coming. Then, still hungry, and fearing the size and prowess of the second search party, they reluctantly ate a few of each other for dessert before retreating into the shadows of the forest. That was discretion and admirable generalship. They fought when there was a chance to win, and then withdrew before superior numbers.

There are plenty of such wolf stories in the papers, and now and then others even more impressive. During 1926, for instance, in the pages of the New York Sun packs of wolves held Italy under a reign of terror; a bit later in the New York Times villages in Siberia were barricaded against wolves. Two million cattle and many people were killed.

Thus stands the evidence for the affirmative—wolves do run in packs. They devour wedding parties in Russia and they eat trappers and Indians in Canada. They terrorize Italy and lay siege to towns in Siberia—in the papers, at least.

But there are skeptics who do not believe all they see in the papers or read in books of travel. These iconoclasts tell you that every story of a wolf-pack that you ever read or heard is fib, fiction, or folklore, and that there never has been a pack of wolves in Russia, America, or anywhere except in people’s imagination. That seems a hard position to defend, but they go at it valiantly. Their defense lies in both logic and fact. For the logic they ask you to consider the caribou-hunting wolf as a sample.

Their argument begins with the generally accepted fact that there are more than ten million wild caribou in Northern Alaska, Northern Canada, Northern Siberia and the Arctic islands. From these at least two million caribou are born every year; two million must, therefore, die, or the numbers would increase. Certainly less than 10 per cent of these are killed by human hunters. None die of old age and very few of accident or disease, for if a caribou is old or sick it moves slowly and is soon overtaken and devoured. This means that wolves kill every year a good many more than a million and a half caribou.

In summer, when their puppies are being brought up, the northern wolves live in part on eggs, fledgling or moulting birds, and rodents. But in winter the birds have flown south, the rodents are safe asleep in their frozen burrows, and almost the only thing a wolf can find to eat is caribou. I know how wolves kill caribou, and I can offer some personal testimony on wolves in general, for I was born on Lake Winnipeg in a wolf country; I was brought up among wolves and coyotes in Dakota before it became “civilized” and was split up into North and South Dakota; I lived for some ten years in the Arctic, supporting myself most of the time by hunting. I have shot wolves with a rifle and have seen hundreds of them either trotting quietly along or loping steadily in pursuit of caribou. I have seen the tracks of thousands following game, and have found signs of hundreds of tragedies where they had killed some bird or beast. I have asked dozens of Arctic Indians (Slaveys, Dogribs, Loucheux) and hundreds of Eskimos about how the wolf hunts, and there has been no divergence between what they have told me and what I have seen.

A wolf cannot run nearly as fast as a caribou, and must capture it by tiring it out. That is the essence of all I have seen and all I have been told. It means that, before it is killed, each caribou has to be pursued by the wolves from several hours to several days—nobody knows exactly how long. All hunters agree that (except for newborn calves) the youngest caribou are the swiftest and staunchest runners. The ones killed by wolves are therefore chiefly the old bulls and old cows. A cow may weigh two or three hundred pounds, and a bull three or four hundred, live-weight. Nearly half of that is waste. The wolves are, then, pursuing anything from 100 to 200 pounds of food. For, no matter how large the caribou herd may be when the chase begins, they eventually scatter, and the pack, if there is a pack, finds itself pursuing the single slowest animal.

Suppose, now, there are 200 or 300 wolves, as in Miss Cather’s heart-rending story. She provided hers with six sleigh loads of Russians, six to twelve in a sleigh, and three presumably fat horses hitched to each. That would make a square meal for even 300 wolves. But it would be far otherwise if the 300 followed a single 300-pound caribou for three days, or even one day. They would be so hungry that the beast, divided by 300, would be to the pack no more than a tantalizing appetizer. There would be nothing for it but to resort to another well-known habit of the fiction wolf and use their whetted appetites on each other—eating, let us say, a dozen to correspond to the soup course, a dozen for the fish, and two dozen for the roast, with at least another dozen of the youngest and tenderest for dessert. But the continued practice of dining on each other like that would soon reduce a wolf-pack below fiction and movie standards. In fact, you might as well do without a pack altogether; for it is scarcely worth the bother to build one up to the required size, just to have it disappear again in a few weeks by the members of the troupe swallowing one another.

Those who are trying to prove that the wolf-pack really exists will perhaps admit that the abstract logic of pack hunting seems a little faulty, but will insist, and quite rightly, that logic does not amount to a hill of beans when contradicted by facts. The pack stories, they will tell us, are simple truth. Newspapers may exaggerate, but the better ones never invent. Besides, nearly everybody has an uncle or an aunt who had a grandmother or grandfather that was eaten or nearly eaten by a pack of wolves.

That brings us to the evidence—are the wolf-pack stories true? To save time, we shall take at once the testimony of a group of scientists and practical hunters who ought to know because they make the study of wolves their profession—studying also the testimony of everyone they ever heard of who claimed to have seen a pack of wolves. They are Americans, too, and within your reach, so you can write postcards to them tomorrow and see what they really think. Don’t be diffident about asking. You are probably a taxpayer. They are your servants, for they work for the government that taxes you.

The branch of the government that studies wolves as a part of its business is the Bureau of Biological Survey at Washington, and the head of it is Dr. E. W. Nelson,[12] a lifetime student of wild animals. He was four years among Arctic wolves in Alaska (1877-81) and has himself studied wolves in Mexico and all over the United States. Furthermore, he has under him other men who have studied wolves, among them Edward A. Preble, who has spent much time in the sub-Arctic and Arctic forests and prairies of Canada. But more significant still, there is under Dr. Nelson’s successor’s direction the wolf-killing service of the United States Government. This is a body of men who hold themselves in readiness for telegraphic appeals from stockmen, usually in the West, who find their animals being destroyed by wolves. They come and exterminate the wolves “scientifically,” and the flocks and herds are safe again.

In gathering material for a book I was writing about wolves, I consulted Dr. Nelson. We agreed, first, that the accepted meaning of the word pack, when applied to wolves is a large number of wolves that have come together to help each other in hunting. In other words, one mother with her puppies would not constitute a pack. Dr. Nelson felt so positive about the nature of wolves in North America, from Mexico to the Arctic, that he thought I would be safe in denying flatly in my book that any wolf-pack ever existed on our continent. But, just to make sure that no different opinion was held among people of authority corresponding to his own, we formulated a letter which he addressed to certain scientific students of wolves, and to all his wolf-killers.

As to how many wolves had been seen together, the various replies naturally gave different answers, for experiences varied somewhat. But they ranged only from two to five. They were unanimous in reporting that if several wolves were seen together then these were always the mother with her puppies, or conceivably the father and mother with their puppies, and never a pack in the usual sense of that word.

Then what about the story of the wolves that killed the elderly trapper and the two Indians on the front page of the Times? Surely that was no family of puppies—sixteen dead wolves, killed by the Indians; a few, presumably, killed by the old trapper, and enough left over to eat up one white man, two Indians and part of sixteen dead wolves. To make the inquiry into the truth of the story official and more authoritative than if I were doing it myself, I suggested to Dr. Nelson that he write to Ignace, Ontario. For checking up, I wrote also to Mr. J. B. Harkin, Commissioner of National Parks, Ottawa, who was at that time (1922) in charge of the administration of the game laws of Canada, and therefore in a position to set in motion official machinery to find out about this wolf story. Thus I received the same replies from two directions, one through Dr. Nelson and the other through Mr. Harkin. They were, in substance, that no such man as the old trapper ever existed and that no white man had been killed by wolves. No such Indians as described existed there and none had been killed by wolves, whether in packs or otherwise, either in the vicinity of Ignace, or anywhere in the world, as far as anyone living in the vicinity of Ignace knew.

Hundreds of other tales about wolf-packs, published in newspapers or books, have been traced by the United States Biological Survey and by various students, including myself. In no case was evidence found to support them. Just try it yourself on the next American despatch you read. In spite of all the pretended details—the sorrowing family, the Masonic funeral—it will be reasonable odds to bet dollars to doughnuts that the story will turn out pure fiction, or at best will rest on testimony no court of law would accept as proof.

The case seems to be definitely settled against the wolf-pack in North America. But there still remains Russia. Well, why not let Russia remain? No one seems to have checked wolf-pack stories in Russia for everyone is so sure they are true. And perhaps they are. Besides, it is a distant country, and the fancy must somewhere have play.

The book on wolves which the July, 1927, Mercury said I was writing is still being written (1936), or, rather, the evidence for it is still being gathered. We use here from that accumulation sample case histories which give the trend of the material.

Under a date line of Winnipeg, April 16, 1922, many or most Canadian newspapers printed a story which I read in the Ottawa Morning Journal about the body of a trapper, Ben Cockrane, having been found torn to pieces north of Fisher River on Lake Winnipeg the previous Thursday. “He had been attacked by a pack of timber wolves. His bones and pieces of his clothing and a rifle with a broken stock were found nearby. Before being killed, Cockrane shot seven wolves dead and clubbed four to death, their bodies lying around his tattered remains being the only evidence of his fight for life.”

That story had a personal interest. For I was born on Lake Winnipeg and might, therefore, seem to have had as a child a narrow escape from the ancestors of the pack which destroyed Cockrane—we were there in the pioneer days back in the late 70’s, long before railways, when there was only an odd cabin along the shores of the lake and when presumably the wolves were even more numerous than now, and more predatory. Investigation would be simple, too, for I could write to some of our old neighbors or their descendants.

But the case was being handled so widely and with so much respect by the press that a formal approach seemed indicated, one above the suspicion of bias. Accordingly, two lines of inquiry were started, both of them official. Nelson, at my suggestion, inquired on behalf of the logical department of the United States Government. In Canada, Harkin was then in charge of wild-life investigation for his government and could use the machinery of the Dominion Parks Branch. When I placed the newspaper report in their hands I received friendly assurance that the case would be followed up both in their own interest and because of their previous association with me in similar studies.

Under date of May 22 Harkin wrote that an investigation had been made and that “Mr. Cockrane has stated ‘that the report of his death was grossly exaggerated.’” On May 31, Nelson, after like findings, wrote:

“This amusing climax to the ferocious wolf tale is similar to that of many other newspaper accounts of the killing of human beings by wild animals, which the Biological Survey has run down during the last thirty years or more. Such stories are almost invariably pure fiction.”

A third inquiry, made by a friend in the Hudson’s Bay Company’s office at Winnipeg, brought a statement that when their representative interviewed Mr. Cockrane he seemed annoyed and replied, I gather somewhat petulantly, that as long as he could remember there had seldom been so few wolves around as this year.

Sometimes when we trace the story of a pack devouring a group of school children we find that it all started when a small boy stepped on a dog’s tail and was bitten in the leg. There does not appear to have been even that much local base for the Cockrane fabrication.

The Ignace, Ontario, story (given above in its American Mercury form) has in my files considerable documentation. On January 2, 1923, I wrote Dr. Nelson in part:

“I wonder if you missed the interesting wolf story that appeared in the New York Times for December 28th. In case you did, I am enclosing a copy.

“I am writing an article for publication in Collier’s Weekly about fake wolf stories and especially about the great wolf-packs that gallop through our books and newspapers. Just as this article is being prepared for publication out comes another story. I am so sure that this one also is a fake that I am not holding up the publication of the article. However, I hope very much that you will be able to put a tracer on it and find out whether there is any truth behind this particular version.”

Dr. Nelson replied January 4:

“... I saw the New York Times article copied in a local paper and at once considered it one of the typical wolf articles which appear in the press, particularly every winter.

“In order, however, to get definite information on the subject, I am writing to the postmaster of Port Arthur, Ontario, and also at San Ignace, sending them copies of the article and asking them what basis there is for a statement of this kind. I will let you know the results when they are received....”

I had written similarly to A. Brabant, Fur Trade Commissioner, Hudson’s Bay Company, Winnipeg, and to Harkin. Brabant, who later investigated for me more fully, gave preliminary reply January 6:

“I believe that the wolf story which was enclosed with your letter of the 2nd inst., is merely romance....

“As you are well aware, there are few, if any, cases of wolves attacking people....”

G. D. Russell, Postmaster of Port Arthur, Ontario, wrote Dr. Nelson January 17, 1923, in part:

“There have been similar stories circulated during the past years, but all have been found to be untrue, and while wolves are a serious scourge to wild animal life in the bush, and a source of annoyance to settlers in the back country, in so far as they are not averse to raiding their domestic fowl, yet the genuine evidence of men being killed by them has yet to be established.

“This recent story originated at Ignace, 200 miles west of Port Arthur. My personal opinion (and the consensus of opinion) is, that there is not the slightest foundation of truth in it.”

The Postmaster of Ignace, John Davies, wrote Dr. Nelson January 18, 1923:

“Your letter to hand, RE: the killing of three men by wolves north of Ignace. We in Ignace know nothing about this affair excepting what we read in the papers. I don’t think there is a word of truth in it. There are a lot of wolves which are doing a lot of damage among the wild game but so far as tackling human beings, I have never had any proof yet.”

The press discussion of the Ignace story was voluminous throughout Canada, particularly in Ontario. On January 18, 1923, Harkin sent me a quotation from “one of our local papers, under date the 17th instant”:

“... The scene of the tragedy was laid on a trail seventy miles north of Ignace. The names of the victims of the wolves were not given. Several old timers in Northern Ontario have ridiculed the story and have claimed that wolves are not man-killers. A Toronto man ... wrote to W. T. Thompson, dealer in furs at Ignace, asking as to the facts of the story.

“Mr. Thompson is quoted as replying: ... ‘Wolves are very numerous around here, but I have lived in this country for twenty-five years and have yet to hear of anyone being killed by wolves. During the past ten years, or over, I have been buying raw furs from trappers and Indians and have never heard any such tales that turn out true.’”

Reverberations of the Ignace yarn continued to reach me for several months. For instance, there came in a letter from an old friend, Inspector G. L. Jennings, of the Royal Northwest Mounted Police (now styled Royal Canadian Mounted Police), dated April 20, 1923. We shall use the main part of it in another connection but print here extracts from a cutting he sent taken from the Edmonton Journal of February 10:

“Recently I read a letter concerning the habits of wolves. I had also read some time ago of a tragedy in the woods of our north country in which several men were pulled down and devoured by these animals,” says Dr. J. S. McCullough, writing in the Toronto Globe.

“In the gold rush of 1897 or 1898, when so many men made an attempt to get into the Klondike country via Edmonton, Athabasca Landing, Great Slave Lake and the Mackenzie River, I was one of a party which attempted a traverse from the Mackenzie River to Fort Norman to the Stewart or McMillan River over the divide. I was obliged to come back on account of sickness when we had got out about 60 miles on the trail. After dividing the supplies with my partner I made the trip back alone and as it was necessary that the onward-going party should have two tents I did not even have a tent to cover me on the return trip, but built little shelters of spruce, rolled in my sleeping bag with only boughs with a fire at my feet, and this slight windbreak to protect me from the winds and the wolves. Wolves there seemed to be in plenty, judging from the terrifying howls at night, but they were seldom seen. In my weakened condition from dysentery I made very slow time on my return trip to the banks of the river, six miles below Fort Norman, where there were several unoccupied, roughly-built log shacks. With 75 to 100 pounds on my sled I would drag along five or six miles, construct a stage and place my pack in safety, returning over the ground until I had all my stuff moved up. At this time of year and in this latitude I saw little of the sun, and frequently I made my move at night if the light was good and not much wind.

“I found the wolves very curious, following along on my snowshoe track, crossing and recrossing it, appearing at one side and ahead and then on the other side ahead or behind, always, however, in silence. I had been given to understand by Billy Paton, then of the Hyslop and Neaggel Trading Company, that the wolves never attacked a man, and so I traveled all alone, and very seldom with a weapon of any kind other than a light camp axe, and, although I was very lonesome and very weak and very down-hearted, I really never had any fear of the wolves. There was one that I became pretty well acquainted with, a very large and almost black fellow, who was afterward accidentally caught in a bear trap which had been set by an inexperienced miner by the name of Low Day. The trap was lost beneath the snow, and although Day knew about where it was, we were all afraid to hunt for it for fear of getting into it ourselves. The large, almost black, wolf that followed my trail like a ghost in some mysterious way sat down on his haunches right in the jaws of this trap, where we found him dead and frozen stiff.

“I think that those of us who put in the balance of the winter on the bank of the Mackenzie were all more relieved that the trap was thus discovered than at catching the wolf. What I have said here makes a very negative sort of wolf story, but the fact that I was out night after night alone and that every time I went back over my trail I saw fresh wolf tracks, and that through the long Arctic nights one could almost always hear the howl or bark of the wolf probably chasing hares, for the big game was driven away by the 40-odd men who had gone over the country, leaving hungry wolves and little else but hares and ptarmagan, would seem to prove that if ever the wolf would attack a human being the conditions were right for them to do so as I plodded my slow course back alone over this trail.

“... Personally I do not believe that the wolves of Canada ever attack a living human being. They would in time probably become bold enough to pick the bones of anyone dying or being frozen to death in the bush country. I have talked of wolves to many bushmen and never yet have I come across anyone who had bush experience but had an absolute contempt for the wolf so far as being attacked by him or them went....

“I can quite believe that a person who had been fed-up on wolf stories might take to a tree in fear when the wolves kept appearing and disappearing as they will do on the trail of a woodsman as he marches along at dusk, but I believe that it is only the wolf’s natural curiosity that leads to his follow-up tactics. The black tail or mule deer will often do the same thing if you pretend not to have seen him....”

The Cockrane story, as said, never gave us investigators a trace of foundation. One version of a basis for the Ignace story was contained in a letter of January 12 from L. M. Gleeson, of 416 Victoria Avenue, Fort William, Ontario, who wrote me on the letterhead of the Fort William-Port Arthur Rotary Club:

“Replying to your letter of January sixth, re wolf story from Port Arthur. I would say that the story was just a rumor. It originated, I believe, by a trainman running between here and Ignace, Ont., and as the story was re-told it was enlarged upon. I do know that the newspaper here tried for sometime to get a confirmation of the story direct from Ignace, but they were unable to do so. This story did not appear in our local paper although it was telegraphed outside....”

A theory of the Ignace yarn, published long after, makes it a fable devised for the good of a community. On January 16, 1933, the Portland Oregonian printed a letter from Ada Alice Tuttle, summarizing investigations which she had made or was familiar with, the occasion being that the “Ten Years Ago” column had revived the story:

“The occurrence was investigated by several persons, Dr. (William T.) Hornaday among them. The explanation reveals the resourceful boss of a lumber camp, solving an acute liquor problem. It seems that a number of his men were in the habit of going to the nearest settlement to get drunk. So, remembering the effect produced on the youthful mind by the adventures of ‘Little Red Riding Hood,’ he also invented a fairy tale, suiting it to his audience by introducing plenty of action and lots of gore. ... They swallowed the yarn, hook, line and sinker, and after that stayed where they belonged, with the most admirable docility.”

As Dr. Nelson pointed out, the newspapers run dispatches on wolf-packs chiefly in winter. This, according to the stories themselves, is determined by laws of Nature. The rigors of the weather have banished or destroyed the wild animals on which the wolves customarily prey; besides, there is no doubt an increased metabolic rate, wolves, like people, needing some of the caloric energy from the food they eat for keeping themselves warm. In desperation the beasts gather in larger and larger packs and finally in extreme cases attack houses or even villages—the latter chiefly in some distant foreign country. In America they seem to confine themselves to attacks on people that are out in the woods. Usually we have to depend on word pictures by the survivors for information regarding these encounters, but on December 9, 1923, the New York Times was able to publish in its rotogravure section two photographs from Sudbury, Ontario, giving the supporting testimony of a camera. One of the pictures showed two men standing knee-deep in snow as they defended themselves against a pack of wolves. The caption was “A Tragedy Among the Snows of the Far Northern Woods.” The summarized printed account said that, ammunition gone, two huntsmen were set upon by a pack of fifteen wolves. They fought them off, one using for a club the barrel of his gun, the other an axe. Before the battle came to a decision a third member of the hunting party arrived and was able to turn the tide with gunfire. The second picture has the description:

“The aftermath of a bloody battle in the wilds. Huntsmen binding up their wounds after hand to hand battle with pack of timber wolves from which they were saved by the timely arrival of a third member of their party.”

When I sent these pictures to Harkin for investigation, if he thought well of it, and in any case for comment, he replied that he was fed up with tracing stories of wolf-packs. It seemed to him a study of the picture indicated that the wolves in the picture had all been dead for some time. Apparently they had been allowed to freeze stiff in various attitudes and had then been propped up in the soft snow to give the semblance of an attacking wolf-pack.

Doubtless the three hunters were too excited during the battle and forgot about taking pictures. So they had to re-enact the adventure for the camera next day. The chief difficulty about that explanation was that some of the “wolves” looked a bit like dogs.

Sure enough, time proved that the doggy look of the wolves had its reason. On April 12, 1927, the Utica Press carried a letter from B. H. Divine in which he said, in part:

“The New York Times published a picture a while ago of two men with clubbed guns fighting for their lives against a pack of wolves. Following this up I received word from the Royal Canadian Mounted Police that the wolves in the picture were dogs very cleverly posed, and the whole thing was a fake.”

During the next years there were few American stories of note although striking accounts of packs and their depredations were printed from Europe—these we shall discuss farther on. The American scene brightened with January, 1926, when on the 17th the Chicago Tribune presented to its readers the desperate situation then facing one of the territories of the United States:

ALASKA TO WAR ON WOLF PACKS WITH AIR BOMBS

Shrapnel from Planes May Save Game

Juneau, Alaska—(Special)—Dropping bombs from airplanes upon packs of big timber wolves is a method for destroying these game-killing brutes, now advanced and approved by Governor George A. Parks. A trial of the idea is planned for next month, generally known as the hunger-month of winter, when wild life is at its lowest ebb and gnawing pangs grip wolves, lynx and owls.

According to reports received at the governor’s office, female caribou, deer, and domesticated reindeers have been repeatedly attacked this winter by large bands of timber wolves. The destruction among the female caribou is appalling.

The bull caribou in winter round-up together, peacefully content, leaving the cows to protect themselves and yearling calves as best they can. All are antlered, but they lack the weight of caribou bulls, likewise the fighting strategy.

Air mail men operating in the Alaskan service have filed many reports of instances where packs of wolves, hearing and seeing the planes in the sky, gathered forces and raced the aviators, leaping and barking at the birdlike machines after the manner of dogs barking at pigeons. To the aviator it seemed that a large rock dropped into the packs would easily kill or maim many.

The plan proposed is to drop bombs loaded with shrapnel and dynamite into wolf-packs powerful enough to wreak terrific damage even hundreds of feet away in all directions. Trappers and hunters believe that the animals, seeing a bomb dropped, would instantly run to examine it, thus bringing about their own destruction.

Timber wolves weighing 250 pounds, seven to eight feet in length, have been killed by trappers this winter near Fairbanks. The same breed of animal infests the territory from Ketchikan, far north in the tundra, where herds of reindeer forage. The native herders report many encounters with prowling brutes eager to pull down young reindeer.

A powder manufacturing concern has offered bombs free for the unique hunting expedition.

The Tribune account thus pictures not only a situation physically serious but paints a discouraging view of the moral deterioration of the Alaska bull caribou which were no longer willing to place at the service of the smaller and weaker members of the herd their superior antlers, greater weight and their fighting strategy.

But it was encouraging to read that the very head of the Alaska territorial administration, Governor George A. Parks, was in charge of the relief operations. I happened to know he was in Washington and wrote him there February 19. His reply came dated February 23 from the office of the Secretary of the Interior:

“Concerning the clipping from the Chicago Tribune, I am at a loss to understand how it originated. I left Juneau, December 16, 1925, and have been in Washington since early in January. I never have authorized any such statement. It may be a fact that the bulls separate from the rest of the caribou herd during the winter, but my personal observation has been to the contrary. If any of the pilots in the Air Mail Service have filed reports as alleged in the newspaper account, these reports never have come to my attention. It would be most unusual to hear a wolf bark like a dog. There may be wolves in Alaska that weigh 250 pounds, but I do not know of any such records.[13] I believe that it is conceded generally that a wolf-pack usually includes only the members of the family—father, mother, and pups—and they separate about the beginning of the next mating season. I have no personal knowledge of any large bands of wolves, nor have I been able to find any authentic cases where bands of wolves have molested reindeer or caribou herds. Many times during my winter trips through Alaska, I have been told about the wolf-packs, but so far as I know the stories never have been founded on fact.

Geo. A. Parks

Governor of Alaska.”

Logically the Bureau of Biological Survey was concerned with the situation and its Chief, Nelson, wrote me February 24:

“The other day I had a conference with Governor Parks on various matters relating to Alaska and he showed me the copy of the Chicago Tribune clipping of January 17, a copy of which you sent me, containing the weird tale of the plan to bomb wolves by the use of airplanes. Governor Parks was inclined to be somewhat exercised over the connection of his name with this absurd statement....

“Of course, the whole thing is an absurdity on the face of it ... there is no such abundance of wolves in Alaska as indicated in this article.... The claim that timber wolves weighing 250 pounds have been killed near Fairbanks the present winter is another evidence of the absolute unreliability of the article.”

This is trying to be a chronological statement but we are unable to resist the temptation to print from a Washington despatch of the Associated Press as it appeared in the New York Times of May 31, 1936:

“Plans for an airplane attack on savage packs of Alaskan wolves were worked out today by three Federal agencies....

“Last Winter, Governor John W. Troy cabled for help....”

It may have seemed a bit far afield in 1926 to go all the way to Alaska for stories of wolf-packs, so the Associated Press in 1927, with a Chicago date line of January 24, had a story which one paper used under “Hunters to Renew Search for Wolves Near Chicago. First Venture Fails to Disclose Marauding Pack Reported by Farmers.” However, there was skepticism (that’s the difficulty of having the stories too near home) and Leroy Davidson, former chief of the Cook County Highway Police, was quoted:

“Wolves—bah! Last summer there was a camp of Campfire Girls in the forest preserve. They had three dogs—the dogs were a mixture of Airedale and police dog. When the girls broke camp they left the dogs behind. I also had an Airedale. He ran away and joined the other three. These four dogs are the ‘pack of wolves’ that are causing all the commotion.”

That pronouncement threatened at first to be a wet blanket. However, there is in my files a press cutting dated February 4 with the heading: “Fliers Hunt Wolves on Edge of Chicago. Posse Has Had No Luck.” So the story did keep going awhile.

When it requires ten days on the edges of Chicago to dispose of a wolf-pack, even with the assistance of the chief of the Highway Police, no wonder stories from Alaska have a considerable lease of life. Some of them promise to become, and to remain, a part of the source material of Alaskan natural history.

The year 1927 proved rich in American wolf tales, making up for the comparatively lean years since 1923. My favorite of that season, and of many years, I was able to trace through the help of my old friend Lee Smits, free lance writer and also columnist for the Detroit Times. It is not a story of a wolf-pack, but we digress a moment to place chronologically a striking episode of a lone Michigan wolf. We quote the St. Ignace Enterprise of February 3, 1927:

LARGE TIMBER WOLF

Entered the Home of Robert Alexander and Attacked Woman and Children

Mrs. Robert Alexander and children were made the victims of a savage attack by a large timber wolf in their home in Brevort township last Wednesday. The animal, made desperate evidently by hunger forced its way through the doorway of the kitchen and made a rush at the children who were playing on the floor. Mrs. Alexander got between the wolf and the children and called to her husband to get a gun, and she also was leaped upon by the animal and borne to the floor. Before it could do serious harm Alexander appeared with a gun and first kicking the wolf from the prostrate form of his wife fired as the wolf made its escape through the doorway and slightly injuring it. It was making towards the woods when Mrs. Lottie Page, a neighbor, hearing the shot came out of her home with a loaded shotgun in her hand and seeing the wolf made a lucky shot killing the animal.

While wolves have been reported as being numerous in Brevort and surrounding townships, and have done considerable damage, this is the first instance that one has been known to have attacked a human being. The Alexanders are of the opinion that the attack was caused by starvation as the animal appeared to be weak from exhaustion.

On seeing this gem, I wrote Smits, who replied April 29:

“State Conservation Officer George Gish, Jr., who patrols the area in which the ‘attack’ occurred, called at the Alexander home and was shown the dead wolf. It was a small mongrel of the collie type, with a bob tail, a white blaze, yellow in color, weighing not more than 40 pounds. There is an epidemic of ‘running fits’ or ‘fright-disease’ among dogs, and this dog may have rushed into the cabin while delirious, or it may have merely been cold, hungry and lonesome. It was a male dog. The rumor that the animal was a timber wolf started when someone in the neighborhood ‘guessed maybe’ there was wolf blood in the dog. Not because of its appearance, but because it came out of the woods and acted strangely....

“... The story is from a paper at the county seat. It was carried extensively over the wires....”

Although chiefly known to the literary world for his novel Spring Flight, Smits is, among other things, one of America’s connoisseurs of un-natural history. So he could not resist going on:

“Not only can many bartenders and hotel clerks in the backwoods give you good wolf yarns—attacks on mankind—but old lumberjacks know, by direct hearsay, of some desperate encounters. The editor of the daily paper at Sault Ste. Marie, Ont., ... has for several years offered $100 for an authenticated report of a wolf attacking a person in the Algoma district of Ontario. No takers.

“The state prison at Marquette, Mich., fronts on Lake Superior and, although on the outskirts of a small city, is at the edge of a strip of wild country extending into rather large areas of swamp and timber and offering cover for a fugitive for hundreds of miles. Very few escapes are attempted, and the fear of wild animals is unquestionably a deterrent. One gang got loose and were rounded up because they made straight for roads and kept on them. They spent one night in the brush, with a few hares, porcupines and owls about them, and perhaps a fox or coyote, and said when they were caught that they all were sorry they ran away when darkness closed in on them. They had a terrible night. All city gunmen.”

That there are at times very special motives behind wolf-pack stories appears from a letter from B. H. Divine, published in the Utica, New York, Press of April 12, 1927:

“To the Editor of The Press:

The following wolf story recently appeared in The Press:

‘Huntsville, Ont., March 31—While making his way to a lumber camp near Algonquin Park, Elwood Bloss was pursued by a pack of wolves. He fled onto the open ice, where the animals, 16 of them, surrounded him. Their howling attracted the attention of a game warden, who arrived before they closed on their intended victim. He shot seven before the pack fled.’

Upon writing to the authorities at Huntsville for the truth of the matter, I received the following letter from T. Muyhum, postmaster:

‘This story was first published here early in January last, but since that time it has been pretty thoroughly exploded.

‘The young man (aged 22) started out to walk six or seven miles to the railroad station early in the morning. The howling of some wolves at a distance frightened him so badly that he did not recover for some days. It was necessary to make some explanation of his condition, and the truth sounded so inadequate he built the story to suit his condition. It was soon into the papers, and after being contradicted from the pack end he acknowledged that much of it was not true.’”

For some reason there did not come to my attention until 1931 a support of wolf-packs by book reviewers and press commentators who relied on a volume published in 1929, The Last Stand of the Pack, by Arthur H. Carhart and Stanley P. Young. At last, said the reviewers, a distinguished biologist and student of wild life has spoken out, resentful about the sniping at wolf-packs by amateur naturalists.

Young was chief biologist of the U. S. Biological Survey, exclaimed the champions of the pack, in consonant triumph. They were right, for I looked him up in American Men of Science and found this substantial record:

“... U. S. Govt. hunter, bur. biol. surv., U. S. Dept. Agr., Ariz., 17-19, in charge ground squirrel control work, 19, coyote control crew, southeast N. Mex., 20, asst. leader predatory animal control, 20-21, leader, Colo-Kans. dist., 21-27, asst. head div. econ. investigations, Washington, D. C., 27-28, prin. biologist in charge div. predatory animal and rodent control, 28-....”

The reviewers did not notice, but I did, a sensational angle. To have Young opposing Nelson was like Roosevelt falling out with Smith—the chief of a division of the U. S. Biological Survey opposing that retired chief of the Survey who had brought him to Washington. It was a delicate situation but I had to get Nelson’s view and wrote him discreetly April 28, 1932. He replied May 14 from California:

“... It will surprise me very much if he has recorded a pack of any considerable size beyond that which you and I believe to be normal (mother with litter of pups). I will look up the matter soon after I return and talk to him about it. Will then write you....”

An invalid, and busy though officially retired, Nelson did not communicate until March 22, 1933. There was to be no Smith-Roosevelt situation, it now appeared, for the retired Chief said:

“Under date of March 14, 1933, Stanley P. Young of the Biological Survey writes....

“‘With regard to your question on wolves, I heartily agree with you that the great packs of wolves such as have been often described in books and newspapers exist only in the minds of writers. In my experience the typical wolf-pack consists of the two parents and their young of the year. One is apt to see this so-called pack in the late fall and up until the early spring. Also it is possible in the formation of this so-called pack for two families of wolves to intermingle for a short time in the fall of the year, particularly if one family group is in close proximity to another, and a kill is in progress. My experience, even under these conditions, however, is to the effect that wolves of several families never unite in a long and friendly association....

“‘It is therefore possible from the foregoing that newspaper writers and authors have in mind the family groups of wolves rather than the packs of adults. However, these writers usually give the impression that these packs are made up of adult wolves. The greatest number of wolves in one litter that I have ever seen totalled eight. This pack was made up of the eight young, which were apparently whelped in early March, and the old female and old male.’”

Nelson felt Young was a bit too generous “in explaining what the writers have in mind in their tales of big packs. Really they are drawing from an inexhaustible store of ignorance on the subject. Probably less than 1 per cent of them ever saw a wolf in the wilds.”

The year 1933 closed on a note ominous for New York State. For the Herald-Tribune of December 30 reported:

“Lithgow Osborne, State Commissioner of Conservation, has assigned Ray Burmaster, game protector of the Saranac Lake district, to exterminate the wolves which have been seen in the northern counties in recent weeks. Ten dozen snares and traps have been set in the wolf-infested areas and seventy-five skilled hunters and trappers will be employed. Wolves recently attacked two farm hands near Fort Covington, in Franklin County.... The pack now at large numbers from twelve to fifty.”

The New York Times, evidently not jealous, supported its rival the Herald-Tribune by saying in an editorial of January 5 that: “... one pack hunting in Franklin County at this time is estimated at from twelve to fifty in number....” They added that: “An application has been made to the Biological Survey at Washington for the services of an expert wolf trapper to rid New York of the unwelcome visitors.”

I wrote the Conservation Department of New York at Albany January 5, and Lithgow Osborne, Commissioner, replied January 12:

“... we do not have any definite information to indicate that the wolves which have recently appeared in the vicinity of Owls Head in the Adirondacks are running in packs. We are sending one of our field investigators, Mr. Darrow, into the region which the wolves apparently inhabit, in an effort to determine just what the situation is. I shall be pleased to request a report from him as to whether or not the wolves are actually hunting in packs, and to see that the information is forwarded to you sometime early in the spring.”

The Commissioner’s follow-up slipped and I did not remind him for two years. On July 13, 1936, came a letter from John T. Gibbs, Deputy Commissioner. He mentions several reports on the Adirondack wolves “all of which resulted in our deciding that there were no packs of timber wolves in the Adirondacks.”

One of the reports was from E. A. Goldman of the U. S. Biological Survey. He had been in the region of the packs and “we crossed a fresh track of one of these canine beasts in a remote section of the forest. Owing to the softness and depth of snow it had been making slow progress. The track, about one day old, appeared like that of a rather small dog.”

Two animals from the supposed wolf-pack had been captured, but “general appearances indicated, however, that both are dogs.”

The skin and skull from another animal killed was sent to the American Museum of Natural History of New York. On February 15, 1934, H. E. Anthony, curator, reported that in his judgment the relics were those of a dog.

By 1935 the news magazine Time had already secured a wide public for its news radio broadcast. They had enough nobility or were secure enough to print in their “Letters” of January 21, 1935, an indignant protest from Manitoba against what the correspondent felt was their nature-faking. Axel Nielsen wrote them from Cranberry Portage, Manitoba:

“Your radio representation of the wolf story (Dec. 21, 1934), was most unconvincing. Don’t let yourself be taken in by such stories....

“For 15 years I have traded and prospected in the North, over a vast territory, a belt 1,200 miles long by 500 wide, the top of all the prairie Provinces and beyond. I have met wolves, traveled with them, trailed them. They have trailed me too; they’re a curious lot. But my own sleigh dogs were ten times more dangerous.... Your terrified passengers were probably stretching the imagination valiantly, thanks to the nursery version of wolves in general.... In all my experience, all my questioning of Indians, whose language I speak fluently, I have never yet discovered a single wolf half as dangerous as the ordinary pasture bull, an irritable sow, or a gander.”

THE WOLF PACK IN THE OLD WORLD

The American Mercury, July, 1927, statement on the wolf-pack closed:

“The case seems to be definitely settled against the wolf-pack in North America. But there still remains Russia. Well, why not let Russia remain? No one seems to have checked wolf-pack stories in Russia for everyone is so sure they are true. And perhaps they are. Besides, it is a distant country, and the fancy must somewhere have play.”

For many years I sought and found reliable information on conditions in what is now the U.S.S.R. from a learned and far-traveled officer of the Russian Navy, Commander N. A. Transehe, who was doing scientific work in New York. One of our conversations dealt with packs of wolves.

Transehe had journeyed through recognized wolf districts of Russia and Siberia so extensively that few could have had more experience. He never saw more than single wolves or a pair (doubtless male and female), except when it seemed clear that the group was one or both parents with a litter. I suggested that doubtless the wolf-pack, then, existed in Russia only as folklore, but this he considered did not follow at all. “I have lived in New York several years,” he said. “I have never been to Wall Street but I know there is a Wall Street. I have lived in the United States without seeing the Rocky Mountains but I know there are Rocky Mountains. It is that way with packs of wolves in Russia. They are of common knowledge.”

This was the considered view of a Russian whose judgment I had often found good. Also there were two of the foremost authorities on wild animals in the United States, who had expressed to me the feeling that Eurasian wolves might be quite different from ours and that we had better not get too dogmatic about their not running in packs or in general about their being just behavior replicas of American wolves. These authorities were the above-cited Nelson, in several letters and conversations, and C. Hart Merriam in a letter of December 9, 1924.

In 1926, with the hilarious Lake Winnipeg (Ben Cockrane) and Ignace yarns fresh in mind, I found myself an after-dinner speaker at a New York banquet of the Western Universities Club where Kent Cooper, then recently elected General Manager of the Associated Press, presided. The opportunity was too good, and I dealt with press faking, spinning yarn after yarn and alleging, in some cases not correctly, that these had been carried by the Associated Press.

On July 8, 1926, I received a letter from Jackson S. Elliott, Assistant General Manager, saying that the Associated Press was making “use of the information you gave to us about the wolves not running in packs in order to have our own service as near accurate as possible.”

Three things seemed to me: that the AP carried fewer American wolf stories during the next several years, that most American wolf stories in the press during that time were not of AP origin, but that stories of wolf-packs from abroad failed to decrease in number.

Magazines were active in European tales. Through an article, “Russia of the Hour,” by Junius B. Wood, the National Geographic Magazine, for November, 1926, p. 521, said:

“It is only a step from Moscow ... into the wide open spaces. Wolves and bears still roam in the Moscow district, and when the dull winter dusk comes at 2 o’clock in the afternoon and the country is under its white mantle of snow, hunger drives them to prey on mankind.

“They boldly attack villages and, this year, even assailed a railroad train of cattle. No peasant ventures alone far outside his village, and one group of 20 men, fancying safety in numbers, was attacked by a wolf-pack. Several were killed and all seriously torn before the pack was driven off.”

The author proved to be a correspondent of the Chicago Daily News, with broad experience of travel, including Russia. I wrote him July 14, 1927, with interest in his picture of Russia under the Soviets, asking several questions, mainly ones that would enable me to check on the reports further:

On what railroad and near or between what towns was the cattle train attacked, whence did the information come, when did the attack take place? Could the author furnish corresponding information regarding the twenty men attacked? What further information could he give regarding wolves in Russia, as to their traveling or working in packs? What sources for still more knowledge could he suggest?

Wood wrote from Paris, France, August 31:

“Your letter of July 14, in which a certain unidentified group designated as ‘we’ requests further information concerning my reference to Russian wolves in an article in the National Geographic Magazine has been forwarded to me here. From time to time this coming winter when I return to the U.S.S.R. I will be pleased to send you what information I receive on this subject as wolves are as active a source of news in that country as bootleggers are in the U. S. A.

“This information was taken from Soviet newspapers. The attack on the cattle train standing on a siding was later corroborated from other sources. The attack on the villagers went into details to the extent of giving the names of those killed. Both occurred in the winter of 1926-7. As I do not have my papers here and do not remember the names of villages, railroad, casualties and other details requested in questions 1, 2 and 3, I must postpone answering further until I return to Moscow and have opportunity to look them up.

“Your statement ‘You know, of course, that of all wolf-pack stories published by the American newspapers, more than 75 per cent are without any foundation whatever, and that most of the rest are based on some misapprehension’ indicates a clairvoyance worthy of your fellow explorer ‘Doc’ Cook. It is the first suggestion which has come to me that I ‘know’, or even admit such a theory. It is far from proven.... (I) have serious doubts of your impartiality on the gregariousness of wolves. Though entirely personal, my humble opinion would accept the version of unscientific but not blind natives, including rural correspondents, who are living with wolves in preference to scientists’ dogmas which appeal to publishers and lyceum managers....”

The letter then goes on to valuable and no doubt accurately quoted statements by Russians on wolves, ending with: “Packs are reported as varying from 5 to more than 100 which, while leaving the figures open to doubt, cannot be entirely an optical illusion.”

The promised letter of information from Moscow did not come, but I secured Moscow and general U.S.S.R. information from other sources. Waldemar Jochelson, distinguished Russian traveler and anthropologist, was then in New York and wrote me twice concerning the Wood article, July 27 and August 11, 1927. The letters do not say it outright, but there is to be inferred from them a view that wolf-packs do exist, or at least may exist. In this Jochelson resembles most Russians whom I know. But, again like most, he holds this belief, or this willingness to believe, in spite of, rather than because of, his own experience. He says in the August 11 letter:

“As to my own observations in Siberia before the railroad was built and in places far away from the railroad after its construction I may say that I never saw a single wolf in my numerous voyages except puppies taken from wolf’s den.

“I was told by my reindeer drivers of instances when single wolves attacking herds of reindeer seized calves in spite of the presence of the herdsmen. I remember one case when a reindeer of my team came running and fell exhausted at the entrance of my tent and the team driver told me that the reindeer was pursued by a wolf.

“Siberian hunters told me the following on the habits of the Siberian wolf. He does not like the woods, preferring the tundra and other open places, where he can see and smell his prey from a distance. Grown up wolves do not like company. Wolves have separate dens and she-wolves abandon their puppies when they become able to hunt for themselves.”

The outstanding foreign wolf tale of 1927, not so much in itself as in what it led to, was printed as an Associated Press release by the New York Times, February 9:

CAUCASUS WOLVES BOMBED FROM AIRPLANE;

HUNGRY PACKS INVADE TOWNS, KILLING PEASANTS

GENEVA, Feb. 8 (AP).—Wolves in the Caucasus have become so numerous that the military authorities there sent an airplane to the infested districts, where poison gas bombs were dropped on packs, killing 200 of the invaders, say reports received by the League of Nations.

Wolves are becoming a menace to the lives of peasants in remote regions of Russia, Poland and some other countries of East Central Europe, the reports say. Ferocious from hunger, these beasts, which have multiplied surprisingly, are reported as frequently making attacks on villages, and in some cases have killed and devoured helpless peasants.

Austria reports that one farmer kept twelve wolves at bay with an axe, wounding them all with powerful swinging blows, and that he was finally rescued by villagers, who saved his life by quick bandaging of bleeding arms and legs.

In the district of Vilna, Poland, packs of wolves, maddened by cold and hunger, descended on the town of Ostrovsk and boldly attacked the inhabitants, who, during several hours, were obliged to put up an organized defense with rifle and shotgun before the savage enemy retired. Poland is reported to have mobilized several regiments to carry on an offensive against wolves.

From Russia come even more terrifying stories. In the rural region wolves by hundreds attack villages and even boldly enter the smaller cities in broad daylight. At Verchofourye five peasants were slain by the beasts before the packs were driven off.

At Orenburg three packs entered the town from different points, throwing the population into a panic and forcing all to barricade themselves in their houses, from which they launched a steady fire, finally killing all the wolves, which tenaciously refused to abandon their attack.

Perhaps through too much Edgar Wallace and E. Phillips Oppenheim I got on this story a slant which appears from a letter written by N. M. Stiles, Foreign News Editor of the Associated Press, to their Geneva correspondent, Joseph E. Sharkey, on February 24:

“Please recall your Wolf story which you sent us by mail. We used it on February 8, but before it got to the wires we sent out a note to editors suggesting its elimination for two reasons, the first being that the incidents described were so extraordinary, the second being that the statement that wolves travel in packs has been disputed. However, although the story did not get on the wires, two of the New York papers nevertheless printed it—the New York Times putting it in a box on the front page.

“Now comes a letter from Vilhjalmur Stefansson, in which he asks the following somewhat startling and curious question:

‘Do you suppose the wolf dispatch you carried about two weeks ago from Geneva could possibly have been some sort of a cipher message on behalf of almost any sort of secret organization? If so, you are the people to do detective work on its origin. I am putting out two or three lines to trace it from the pseudo-natural history point of view.’

“As you recall we cabled you for confirmation of the story, and you replied that the reports were received unofficially leanations (League of Nations) circles also printed widely Swiss newspapers.’ Now when you come to read this story with the thought in mind that the word ‘wolves’ might be a code word to identify some sort of an organization, as for instance an anti-Bolsheviki outfit, the dispatch does read most interestingly. One can imagine that the organization was putting these messages over on the Swiss newspapers.”

Meantime I tried to find out directly how the League was connected and wrote to the League of Nations Non-Partisan Association of New York City. Their librarian, A. G. F. Aylmer, replied February 24 that they could not understand how the wolf stories should interest the League, and while, like me, they had seen the press despatch, they had no direct information of any similar kind from Geneva. Their office would let me know if they found later that there had been some League connection.

The Stiles letter brought a reply from Sharkey, dated March 12. It puts the case reasonably and shows, particularly in the last of our quoted paragraphs, how normal it is in Europe to read, pass on, and believe wolf-pack stories.

“Answering your letter of February 24 concerning the wolf mail story let me say that this was founded on stories and despatches appearing in Swiss newspapers and on confirmatory talks with secretaries of the League of Nations....

“The League interest in the wolf reports is chiefly economic. The reason was explained to me at the time by ... member of the League information section....

“He told me about recent cases of wolf-packs attacking peasants in the outlying districts. I have never before heard disputed the statement that Russian wolves ‘carry on’ in packs. When I was in Siberia in the winter of 1918-19 a detachment of the British Hampshire regiment which ‘en-sleighed’ from Omsk to Ekaterinburg was attacked by a pack of wolves. The soldiers killed most of them. Participants told me the story personally and I wrote it at the time. The whole history of Russia shows that wolves, desperate with hunger, will attack in packs. The word pack means what it says.

“Since mailing you my story there has appeared a despatch from Constantinople declaring that wolves had attacked people in the outskirts. There is a general idea that the lack of arms in Russia (the Soviet government not favoring extensive arsenals in the outlying districts) has led to a big increase in wolves while the present severe winter has brought the beasts out into the open to secure food. I am sorry I have thrown away all my clippings. Certainly Mr. Stefansson’s theory is startling and interesting and I shall follow any new wolf despatch from a new angle, letting you know, of course, the result.

“The wolf narratives have created no stir in Europe whatsoever because they are regarded as entirely probable, given the circumstances outlined above.”

In due course a letter came from the Information Department of the League of Nations, dated Geneva, March 14, and signed by Arthur Sweetser. This letter vouches for the generally high character of the American press representatives at Geneva, the particularly high character of Joseph E. Sharkey, and the authenticity of the news conveyed by Sharkey so far as concerns its having been received by the League of Nations organization and passed on by them. The general tenor of Mr. Sweetser’s long and careful statement is that, without being exactly able to prove the truth of the stories, he really knows them to be correct, and that therefore the League is neither a victim of propaganda nor indulging in any when it passes on information of this kind. One section of his letter reads:

“... it is a fact that one of our officials has seen 6, 8, or 10 (he does not remember the exact number) despatches from Eastern European countries regarding the increasing depredations and boldness of wolves.... The official in question is a native of that part of Europe and his information, and the experience of his friends as to the habits of wolves, differs from that of Mr. Stefansson.”

On June 1, Sharkey wrote me from Geneva:

“... there may be an inherent difference in the wolves found in North America and those found in Russia, including, of course, Siberia. I personally spent three months in Siberia during the winter of 1918-1919, and persons who had long lived there frequently spoke to me about the depredations of wolves which seemed to run in packs....

“... I want to bring to your attention the testimony of a young Frenchman who with others was conducting an aeroplane trip over Ukraine during the latter part of the war.... He said: ‘I think I can throw some light on that question, for when I and my colleagues were flying over Southern Ukraine we distinctly saw a pack of wolves marching slowly and somewhat solemnly through an opening in the woods. The band seemed to have a distinct formation with one wolf striding some feet ahead of the main pack as if he were their leader. Stragglers were seen in the rear, but the whole band seemed to have a distinct and almost military formation under a distinct leader.’

“I have talked again with the Polish friend whose father did a good deal of hunting of wolves, and he repeated that there is no doubt but that in Poland, where the wolves run over from Russia, the animals operate in packs or groups.”

The Associated Press received as late as March 23 pack despatches from Geneva, “where interest in news of wolf activity is chiefly economic.” One of the despatches closed with these three paragraphs:

“There is a general belief here that the lack of arms in the Russian country districts has led to a big increase in the number of wolves, while the severe winter has brought the beasts into the open to secure food.

“Despite the assertions of many naturalists that wolves do not hunt in packs those who have personal knowledge of wolf hunting, particularly in Poland, assert that wolves, desperate with hunger, will attack in packs.

“In the winter of 1918-19 a detachment of the British Hampshire regiment in Siberia which went by sleigh from Omsk to Ekaterinburg reported an attack by a pack of wolves. The soldiers killed most of the animals by rifle fire.”

These despatches, though I saw them through the kindness of the Associated Press, were not sent out to the newspapers—for the reasons given in the already-quoted letter from their Foreign News Editor. On June 22, Stiles wrote further:

“I have just read your article on wolves in the American Mercury, and am reminded that I intended to send you a mail story on the subject that we received some time ago from our then correspondent in Moscow, Mr. James A. Mills. We did not make use of it, as it was for the most part a denial of the wolf story that came from Geneva to which you called our attention and which we had already endeavored to ‘kill.’”

The Mills contribution is valuable as a statement of the time from Moscow and is, of course, wholly authentic to the extent that it is a report of what was believed there then about wolves. We accordingly use more than three-quarters of it:

“Moscow, March 17.—Soviet Government officials were amazed at reports reaching the League of Nations recently that Russia was overrun with wolves to such an extent that in the Caucasus region the military authorities had to dispatch airplanes with poison-gas bombs to kill the invaders. The wolves had become so numerous and ferocious, the League reports said, that they devoured human beings and terrified whole cities and towns.

“‘A wolf story is always as good as a fish story,’ said a prominent Soviet official to the correspondent. ‘The more it is exaggerated, the better it sounds. But such stories ought to be left to those whom the late President Roosevelt called “Nature fakers.” It is in poor taste for a dignified, serious organization like the League of Nations to issue them. The story about an airplane being sent in pursuit of packs of these wolves is pure fiction. Russia has its share of wolves, but they are no more numerous nor savage than those of any other country.’

“That Russian wolves are no more abundant or ferocious than their brother-wolves in other countries, is however, not strictly accurate; for statistics show that not only are wolves on the increase in Russia, but their depredations are much more extensive and costly than formerly. The animals are also considerably larger, stronger and fiercer than the average wolf. The increase in their number is attributed to the peasants’ lack of rifles and shot with which to hunt them. It is only within the last year that the Government, yielding to complaints of the peasants that wolves were menacing their sheep and cattle, organized special detachments of professional hunters to exterminate the wolves, giving a premium for each animal killed.[14]

“The loss in sheep, cattle and horses caused by wolves during the last year is estimated at $6,500,000. A full-grown Russian wolf can easily kill a horse, cow, or even a bull. But he rarely, according to Russian authorities on natural history, shows sufficient courage to attack a man. Indeed, the wolf usually runs in terror at the sight of a human being. Even when travelling in large packs, these Russian experts say, wolves avoid meeting a man in daylight; they become dangerous only at night, when they may collectively attack a person along a lonely, dark road in the country.

“Throughout the day they usually sleep, wandering and hunting in search of prey only in the dark. At such times, say the Russian authorities, the most formidable weapon against the animals is not a loaded gun, but a simple flare of artificial light, like a burning match, a bonfire or an illuminated candle, wolves having mortal fear of anything resembling fire.

“Wolves always live in families—the father, mother, two young wolves born the previous year and two baby wolves born in February or March. Throughout the Summer and Autumn they never leave the neighborhood where their young were born. It is only during the mating season in December and January that the male wolves, seeking their female kin, form packs and roam for scores of miles at night.”

This statement would have been more convincing with the last paragraph omitted. For perhaps the Russians might err on packs when they were so wrong, or at least so far from what naturalists think they know, about mating habits and size of litters among wolves. The usual view is that instead of being whelped in pairs, as these Moscow informants had it, wolves are born in litters ranging up to twelve, and that they do not accompany the mother beyond six or eight months. It is a fresh contribution, too, that wolf-packs consist of males that are searching for females.

For the time being the packs had it—Sharkey’s suggestion (and Nelson’s and Merriam’s) that wolves might be different in Europe seemed to be carrying the day.

But there was the matter of wolves attempting to devour the Hampshire regiment of British troops on its sleigh journey from Omsk to Ekaterinburg in 1918-19. Sir Sidney Harmer of the Natural History Museum, South Kensington, was a student of animal habits and of animal lore. He should be able to get in touch with members of the Hampshire regiment, and I wrote him June 23. The Museum’s Keeper of Zoölogy, W. G. Calman, replied on the Museum’s behalf July 21 that the Hampshire story was fading “as wolf stories generally do when they are more definitely enquired into.” He forwarded a letter dated July 19 from H. M. Howgrave-Graham, who is Secretary of the Metropolitan Police of London and was (says Who’s Who) “Captain in the 1/9 Batln. Hampshire Regiment in India and Siberia, 1914-19.”

“I was in Colonel Johnson’s Battalion (the Ninth Battalion of the Hampshire Regiment) and it happens that I was in charge of the only party which made any considerable sledge journeys during the winter 1918-19.

“My party tried to get to Orenburg from Omsk but didn’t get so far. We went by train to Troitsk and from there we made two sledge journeys, one to Verkhne Uralsk and back and one to Orsk and back. I remember being told that we might see wolves and had hopes of doing so as we travelled a good deal at night. But we were disappointed and never saw or heard any signs of wolves at all....”

Junius B. Wood said in his above-quoted letter to me:

“Your statement ‘You know, of course, that of all wolf-pack stories published by the American newspapers, more than 75 per cent are without any foundation whatever, and that most of the rest are based on some misapprehension’ indicates a clairvoyance worthy of your fellow explorer ‘Doc’ Cook. It is the first suggestion which has come to me that I ‘know,’ or even admit such a theory ... unless you can show that you have tabulated and checked the individual inaccuracies of ‘all’ the newspaper stories which you so sweepingly include, I am extremely sceptical of your ‘75 per cent’ and have serious doubts of your impartiality on the gregariousness of wolves.”

It had never been my intention to claim that three-quarters of all cases had already been studied and found without any vestige of truth. What I meant was that several students whom I know, among them the Chief of the United States Biological Survey, had been investigating for years the cases which came to their attention and that three-quarters of these had proved without foundation—while most of the rest, and perhaps all, were based on misquotations, misunderstandings, and the like.

Particularly with regard to a distant and vast realm like the U.S.S.R. it is hard to study all the cases reported. With increasing frequency through my investigations I began to run upon the name of Sergius Buturlin as a lifelong student of Russian and Siberian wild life and as the foremost authority, among other things, on wolves. Accordingly, I wrote him July 14, 1927, requesting as much general information and as definite information as he felt like giving. He replied August 18:

“I began hunting when about 8 years old, now—I am sorry to say—some 46 years ago. And though my chief interest was always with birds, and my first ornithological paper was published (in Okhotnichia Gazeta or Hunter’s Journal, Moscow) in 1888, I was, and am still, very fond indeed of big game shooting (bears, moose, wolves).

“I hunted much in the basin of middle Volga (governments of Simbirsk—now Ulianovsk—Penza, Kazan, Nijny, Nijny-Novgorod) in governments of Tula and Orel, in Livonia and Esthonia, in governments of St. Petersburg—now Leningrad—and Novgorod, in Kirghiz country (between Irtysh and Ob), Kulunda steppe, gov’ts. of Tomsk and Irkutsk, and in the north: Arkhangelsk and Olonetz gov’ts., Kolguev, Novaia Zemlia, Yakutsk, Verkhoiansk, middle and lower Kolyma, some parts of Chukchee-land and Kamchatka.

“As from 1888 on I was always an active contributor to almost all our hunters’ journals, Russian and German (we had Baltische Waidmann’s Blätter), and from 1898 always took part, as now, in the editorship of our best hunter’s periodicals, I had a vast amount of correspondence with our most experienced shooting men.

“I can fairly say that we have now too much wolves in our country, but I remember years—for instance, about 1900—when in my native Simbirsk gov. and Penza gov. they were as plentiful as now.

“And never in my life have I seen more than 14 wolves in one pack, and this only twice. And never have I heard a reliable account of such a case. And I have known many old and experienced professional trappers and hunters.

“Usual number is about 5-8.

“But I have seen—it was about half-past five in the morning on the 13th Oct. 1893, near my grandmother’s estate Lava in the middle part of Simbirsk gov., Sura basin,—when a pack of 5 attacked a herd of about 10,000 sheep, frightened about a thousand of them in a narrow ravine and in a few minutes slayed 153 sheep—without even taking away a single sheep, as I drove them away.

“I suppose if I didn’t happen to ride near by I would be informed afterward by shepherds that they were attacked by 50 wolves. It was of course too dark to see, but though there was no snow, the ground was soft from rains, and I could count all their footprints in the morning in the bush and woodland near this ravine.

“I am quite sure that wolves (at least in Russia and Siberia) hunt only in family packs, that is, papa, mamma, young ones of the year and often some ones of the previous brood. And this amounts to 5-8, more rarely 9-10, and quite exceptionally 14 specimens.”

Privately we had disposed of the Russian packs of the winter 1927 but in the newspapers they continued to do well. There appeared in Miami, Florida, (and no doubt elsewhere), a despatch which we copy from the News of June 12:

“MOSCOW, June 11—Ten families were rushed to the Pasteur institute at Moscow from Kalujsky, a small village of the Kuban district, after a large pack of mad wolves had swept down the village street, invading gardens and even entering several homes, biting the residents.”

By now the Associated Press was keen on wolves—indeed had been for six months when Stiles wrote on September 30 that there was in his office a Polish representative who believed stoutly in wolf-packs and that they had received (and, I gather, killed) a press despatch from Warsaw:

“Polish military patrol Russian border attacked by pack wolves dispersed them with gunfire.”

I had long been thinking to write my classmate John B. Stetson who was Minister to Poland. This gave occasion, and he replied June 8, 1928:

“A long time ago I had your letter regarding the possible attacks of wolves....

“While there is much talk about the danger of wolves attacking human beings and while people relate incidents which occurred to them when they have seen wolves which they thought were going to attack them, etc., it is extremely difficult to find specific instances when attacks have been made by wolves....

“I asked the Chief of the Frontier Guards to make an investigation of the various border posts to see if any attacks had been noted along the 1500 kilometer front between Russia and Poland. This region is wild and not densely settled. I enclose herewith the letter which I have received from him.”

The letter from General Minkiewicz had specific information on two cases of wolves, each time three in a group, that had been fired on by frontier guards.

As to whether wolves attack in large packs, the General says:

“Accounts of wolves attacking men sometimes appearing in the press have their origin in the phantasy of correspondents seeking sensational news.

“In a few cases, however, we have noted a very aggressive attitude displayed by wolves and, if they did not dare to attack me, it was only due to the fact that there were but few of them....”

The general commanding the frontier guard, then, had apparently never heard that (around September, 1927) “Polish military patrol Russian border attacked by pack wolves dispersed them with gunfire.”

Lee Smits had suggested my writing David C. Mills of the National Association of Fur Industries as likely to be informed on wolf-packs. Mills wrote from New York, December 9, 1927. A summary of his three-page letter is:

Vladimir Eitington (of Eitington-Schild Co., 226 West 30th Street, New York City) was once followed by wolves in Siberia until he camped and built a fire. He thought there might have been 15 or 25, “but he says that in the dark and under such circumstances, he could not make a rational estimate.”

Many animals have the following habit. Mills cites from his own experience wolves (two), coyotes (several), and bears.

Writer’s opinion, and that of his friend, is that wolves never kill people. Specially cited here is John B. Burnham, noted American authority on wild animals, former secretary of the American Game Protective Association.

Mills thinks that “common knowledge” of wolves and suchlike is usually wrong. Then he has his own summary:

“The information from Russian sources in re. the wolf myth is—

“1st There has never been a scientific investigation of the question.

“2nd That wolves, under ordinary conditions, do not attack humans.

“3rd That mad wolves sometimes enter villages and snap right and left at anything or anyone. I presume this means rabies, as that disease is also found in America among coyotes.

“4th That they have no knowledge of any authenticated case of wolves in packs attacking travelers in sleighs, etc., but do not know that it has never happened.”

In 1928, perhaps for variety, the newspaper wolf-packs transferred their chief European activities to districts other than hackneyed Poland and Russia. The American papers informed us soon after the New Year (we quote the New York World of January 6) that:

“... eleven peasant girls of the Czechoslovakian town of Maramaros Sziget were devoured by wolves when returning from a neighboring village through the forest.”

The Consul General of Czechoslovakia gave preliminary reply to my inquiry on January 10, warning that stories of wolves “especially stories from Vienna are always greatly exaggerated.” On April 2 he wrote that “we have here the reply of the Administration of the Sub-Carpathian Ruthenia stating that the report of killing of eleven peasant girls by wolves in Maramaros Sziget is not true.” Further on the letter says that some wolves were seen near Maramaros Sziget in January “and this was the possible foundation for the wild report of Neue Freie Presse.”

November 7 the Evening Standard of London, England, printed a Moscow despatch of even date:

“Wolves are becoming a menace to life in the country districts of North Russia and Siberia....

“... A pack of several hundred attacked a priest and his wife while they were driving from one village to another 100 miles south of Moscow.

“While his wife held the reins, the priest beat off the wolves with a whip. Suddenly a wolf bit one of the horse’s legs. It lurched forward, throwing the priest from the wagon. He was killed by the wolves. The horse carried the woman to safety.

“Similar attacks on persons are reported daily from all parts of the country.—International News Service.”

On this the Chairman of the Amtorg Trading Corporation, Saul G. Bron, wrote me November 25:

“These are termed in the Soviet Union as the ‘big Russian cranberry tree’ tales. Nevertheless, there is no doubt that malicious white-Russian propaganda agencies ... are working overtime and that the comparative scarcity of reliable information about the U.S.S.R. in this country makes a fertile field for the circulation of stories about uprisings, wolves roaming the countryside, etc.”

October 25, C. K. Ogden (whom H. G. Wells has since discussed in the Fifth Book of The Shape of Things to Come) wrote me from the Royal Societies Club, London. He told that the De Reszke cigarette had small prize cards in their packages and that the one on The Wolf said “dogs and wolves hunt in packs.” He wrote them and they replied:

“We are sorry that we cannot give you any zoological authority to maintain the view that wolves hunt in packs as stated on the back of picture No. 26 of our Zoological Studies.... The error will be corrected should we have a reprint of the series.”

Through laxity, or real failure of the sources, my wolf record is blank for Europe and Asia during 1930 and 1931—there is no account of tenderly-nurtured wolf children from India, of babies devoured in Siberia, of forays of Rumanian wolves into Czechoslovakia. But in 1932 the times were more abundant and my records are bulky.

On January 10, 1932, Duncan Campbell Scott, president of the Canadian Authors’ Association, descended to his more factual role of president of the Royal Society and wrote from Ottawa with concern for my wolf studies. He sent a press cutting headed “From Our Own Correspondent, Vienna, Sunday”:

“While an express train from Bucharest was snowbound near Zloty and awaiting help, a pack of hungry wolves bore down upon it.

“Having no firearms, the train staff emptied a luggage van and threw into it raw meat from the restaurant car.

“Twenty or more wolves jumped into the van and began to fight one another for the meat. The doors were promptly locked and later the train proceeded on its journey to Kischinev, Bessarabia. On arrival 18 wolves were found alive, the rest having been torn to pieces.”

In view of the style of this despatch I have looked up Karel Capek in Who’s Who and Britannica but cannot determine from the brief sketches whether he was in Vienna during January, 1932.

How wolf stories rotate appeared two years later when C. K. Ogden sent me what is essentially the same tale—though with a new city of origin, a new date line, a few new frills. The cutting is unfortunately from an unnamed paper of London, England—I dare not guess which paper, though I think I recognize the style. It was from Budapest, December 19, 1933. Like the one of two years earlier it was “From Our Own Correspondent.” It ran:

“An unpleasant adventure which overtook the direct train from Bucarest to Budapest is reported from Bucarest.

“During the night the train was held up by snowdrifts and obliged to stand nine hours in an uninhabited part of Roumania. To the terror of the passengers a pack of wolves surrounded the train, and the situation was only saved by the wit of a conductor.

“An order was given that the luggage van should be emptied, and some raw meat from the kitchen was then placed in the van and the doors thrown open. When all the wolves were safely inside the van the doors were shut, and the train continued its journey with these unusual passengers.

At the station of Chrisina, in Roumania, the wolves were transferred to cages which had been prepared for them.”

It is usually difficult to trace stories from the Balkans, perhaps because their Ministers and Consuls there get tired of answering questions about all the strange things we print from their part of the world. For instance, I still covet the real truth on what appeared, as Special Correspondence, in the New York Times, February 28, 1932, from Bucharest:

“Two peasants on the way to market in Oradea Mare were attacked on the highroad today by a pack of starving wolves. They were unarmed and, after a brief attempt to beat off the animals with sticks, were pulled down, killed and partly devoured.”

I queried the Roumanian Legation on this but never had a reply.

I have had better luck with the northern countries, perhaps because there I know the ropes. The Director of the University Museum, Philadelphia, wrote March 21 on behalf of himself and one of his vice-presidents, passing on to me heartrending news:

WOLVES KILL GIRL IN FINLAND; INVADE VILLAGES FOR FOOD Wireless to The New York Times.

“HELSINGFORS, March 4.—Villagers in Eastern Finland were terrorized this week by an invasion of hungry wolves, roaming southward from the frozen plains of Lapland.

“The beasts entered villages and even the outlying districts of towns in search of food. The young daughter of a farmer in middle Finland was attacked and killed by wolves while she was walking on a highway near her home. Her parents found only bones and fragments of clothing after the tragedy....”

I wrote Helsingfors, sending a copy of the Times despatch. The Intendent of the Zoological Museum replied March 20th:

“... it is not true that a young daughter of a farmer was attacked and killed. A similar notice was found in our press, so that the telegram to New York is therefore explicable. By an official investigation, the whole thing turned out to be a manifestation of too vivid imagination—somebody had found a bloody rag on the road, and thus the story was immediately given. In the same way it is a real nonsense that the wolves had penetrated into villages and towns. The whole thing was about a couple of animals which killed a number of dogs before they were driven away and killed.”

The cruel ingenuity of man towards wolves is a defensive reaction to the cruel rapacity of wolves toward man. In fact, the wide dissemination of stories about packs is a necessity in justifying the extensiveness of the war we wage and the character of the weapons and tactics we use. We would not be half so successful in protecting the chickens of the farmer and the sheep of the rancher if we did not constantly circulate reports of how wolves will attack anything from a child playing on a cabin floor in Michigan to a regiment of British troops in Siberia.