Of Wolves and Men (Scribner Classics)

INTRODUCTION

Some creatures God put on earth to help man, he said, and others to hinder him, and the wolf was a hinderer.

For example, wolves do not kill just the old, the weak, and the injured. They also kill animals in the prime of health. And they don’t always kill just what they need; they sometimes kill in excess. And wolves kill each other.

By Miocene times, 20 million years ago, these two superfamilies of carnivores, the dogs and cats, were distinct, and the more recognizable ancestors of the wolf had emerged.

No one—not biologists, not Eskimos, not backwoods hunters, not naturalist writers—knows why wolves do what they do.

One ORIGIN AND DESCRIPTION

specialized genus of cursorial, or hunt-by-chasing, carnivore in the Paleocene, some 60 million years ago.

They have three systems of communication—vocal, postural, and olfactory.

One CANIS LUPUS LINNAEUS