Wolf
Wolf names 3 different subjects across the 6 encyclopedias on this shelf. Each is set out below.
Wolf a crafty, rapacious animal of the dog family
Aiton's Encyclopedia (1910)
a crafty, rapacious animal of the dog family. Of all wild animals the wolf is most closely related to the dog. There are numerous species found chiefly in the north temperate zone. The corresponding animals of warmer climes are the jackal and the hyena. The last wolf in Great Britain was killed in 1710, but wolves are still numerous in some parts of France, Hungary, Spain, and Turkey. Thrilling tales are told of travelers run down by wolf packs on the forest roads of Russia. The common wolf of North America is very much like that of Europe. It stands about twenty-six inches high at the shoulder. The body is about forty-eight inches long, with an additional fifteen inches of tail. The nose is sharp. The sense of smell is keen. The eyes are deep set. The face is crafty. The fangs are formidable. The body is lithe, tough, and full of endurance. The foot is light and full of speed. The winter coat is long, shaggy, and coarse, well calculated to stand the storm. It varies in color from black in Florida and red in Mexico to white in Alaska. The character of the wolf is well set forth in the nursery tale of Red Riding Hood. It is strong, cunning, ravenous, merciless, and we may add, cowardly. The wolf has none of the nice ways of a fox; none of the generous, faithful characteristics of the dog. It is an inveterate thief. It cannot be petted; it cannot be trusted. In captivity a wolf may be pounded or caressed, fed or starved, and it is a mean-spirited, treacherous, snapping, quarrelsome wolf yet. In the wild the common wolf lives in the timber or on the prairie. It is active at all seasons of the year. The young, five in number, come early in May. They are of a brown color and weigh about a pound each. The female chooses a den in the bank of a ravine, in a cave, or in a burrow under a pile of brushwood. Ordinarily wolves hunt separately or in small families, living on rabbits, partridges, and other small birds and animals, giving clearings and human habitations a wide berth . Wolves are the natural enemies of the young buffalo and the fawn, the calf of the moose and of the musk ox. In times of food scarcity the wolf grows bolder and attacks the farmer's sheep, hogs, calves, and stray poultry. Under some circumstances wolves gather in packs and hunt the larger animals. As distinguished from the prairie wolf or coyote, they are called timber wolves, and are frequently reported to have chased people, but instances of human life taken by American timber wolves are very few. Most states offer a bounty of from $2 to $10 for the destruction of a wolf. The common wolf, the timber wolf, the buffalo wolf, and the gray wolf, are names for the same animal, as distinguished from the coyote or prairie wolf. See Coyote ; Dog ; Fox
Wolf the vernacular name of certain species of the genus Canis
Collier's New Encyclopedia (1921)
the vernacular name of certain species of the genus Canis; for a general account of which see Dog. The principal forms included in this section are as follows: (1) The common wolf (G GRAY WOLF lupus) has very much the appearance of a large, long-legged, bareboned dog, with a long tail, which hangs over its haunches instead of being curled upwards. Distinguishing characters are to be found in the lank body, length of the snout in proportion to the head, sloping forehead, oblique eyes, and erect ears. The fur varies according to the climate with respect both to its nature and color. In the N. it is long and thick-longest on the belly and legs, bushy on the tail, and erect on the neck and sides-while in the S. it is generally shorter and rougher. The color is usually pale yellowish gray mingled with black, lighter, often whitish gray below. It undergoes some change with the season, including to red in the summer, in the winter to yellow, which becomes white in the N.; it is of a darker hue in the S. The forehead is whitish gray, the snout yellowish gray, always mingled with black, the lips whitish and the cheeks yellowish, sometimes distinctly striped. A full grown wolf measures 5 feet 5 inches in length, whereof 18 inches belong to the tail; its height is 33 inches, and its weight over 100 pounds. The wolf's natural voice is a loud howl, but when confined with dogs, it will learn to bark.
Wolf FRIEDRICH AUGUST, a German scholar and critic
Collier's New Encyclopedia (1921)
FRIEDRICH AUGUST, a German scholar and critic; born in Haynrode, near Nordhausen, Prussia, Feb. 15, 1759. Before leaving the gymnasium of Nordhausen, he had not only read the chief ancient authors, but had acquired an extensive knowledge of the languages and literatures of France, England, Italy and Spain. In 1777 he entered the University of Göttingen, but was an ir- FRIEDRICH AUGUST WOLF regular attendant at professors' lectures, giving himself chiefly up to intense and solitary study. As a consequence he was hardly known, and where known not particularly liked. In 1782 he was appointed rector of the Bürgerschule at Osterode in the Harz, and next year he was called to Halle as Professor of Philosophy and Paideutics. Here he labored upward of 20 years with the highest enthusiasm for the cause of education. His ambition was to produce a great race of teachers, who should be instinct with the noblest and purest spirit of antiquity. In 1793 appeared his great work, "Prolegomena ad Homerum" (3d and 4th eds. 1872 and 1875). In 1824 he went S. on a voyage for the sake of his health, but died in Marseille, Aug. 8, of that year.
What Has Changed in the Last Century
Aiton's 1910 advice that "most states offer a bounty of from $2 to $10 for the destruction of a wolf" describes a policy that succeeded: the gray wolf was wiped out across nearly all the lower 48 United States by the 1930s, then listed under the Endangered Species Act in 1974 and reintroduced to Yellowstone in 1995, where its return became a textbook case of a predator reshaping an ecosystem. Wolves have likewise recolonized much of Europe on their own since the 1990s, returning to France, Germany and the Alps, and are again a live political argument rather than a folk memory. The moralizing character sketch, "strong, cunning, ravenous, merciless, and we may add, cowardly," has given way to study of wolves as cooperative family groups; even the "alpha wolf" idea popularized later in the century was retracted by the researcher who spread it, David Mech, in favor of simple breeding pairs with their offspring. DNA work has also confirmed what Aiton's only guessed at, that the domestic dog is descended from the gray wolf, and is now classified within it as Canis lupus familiaris.
Written for this edition, 2026.