REARED BY WOLVES.

Hawera Star, Volume XLVIII, 15 November 1924, Page 4

REARED BY WOLVES.

CHILDREN ON ALL-FOURS

CAPTURED IN THE JUNGLE.

Brigadier General R. G. Burton contributes a fascinating article to Chambers’ Journal dealing with children who were brought up in the Indian jungle by wolves. In view of the predilection of -wolves for carrying off children, it is not surprising that stories of wolf-children should have grown up and multiplied; and it is intelligible that where the she-wolf has lost her young she may in rare cases have adopted and suckled the manchild which she had taken away to devour. The wolf has from classical times been the subject of superstition and dread, probably owing to the familiarity which pastoral man acquired with the habits of the animal)* In India these stories are lifted out of the domain of fiction and legend in many cases of wolf-children, some of them apparently well-authenticated. There have been from time to time several of these waifs of the jungle at the Bikandra Orphanage at Agra. It is remarkable that these have always been male children. None of them has ever shown the intelligence of Mowli of the “Jungle Book,” and none has ever possessed even the power of speech. One was captured on the bank of the Gumti River in Oudh by t-wo troopers, who found it in company with two wolf-cubs, with which it ran on allfours. It had callosities on the knees and elbows due to this mode of progression This boy had a dog-like intellect, and was quick at understanding signs. He was said to have been visited not long after his capture by three wolves, which came evidently with hostile intentions, but which, after closely examining him, he not being in the least alarmed, played with him, and some nights afterwards brought five of their relatives. Another Sikandra wolf-boy, smoked out of a den, was a ferfect w r ild animal. He drank like a dog and preferred raw bones and meat to other food. He would never wear clothes but tore them up into fine shreds when they were given him. These children of the jungle generally died young, hut one was said to have lived to an advanced age.

In another case a lad of 15 who was in the orphanage in 1874, was remarkable for the shortness of his arms, which -were under 20 inches long, their growth presumably having been arrested through going on all fours. This boy was brought in with a body of a she-wolf and two cubs, in whose company he had been found when they were killed.

The capture of one of these children is described in an article to the Academy many years ago by Professor Max Muller, who related the following story: “A trooper sent by the Governor of Chandour to demand payment for some revenue was passing along the bank of the river about noon, when he saw a large female wolf leave her den, followed by three whelps and a little hoy. The hoy went on all fours, and when the trooper tried to catch him he ran as fast as the whelps and kept up with the old one. They .all entered the den, hut were dug out by men with pickgxes, and the boy was secured. He struggled hard to rush into every hole or den they came near.

“He became alarmed when he saw a grown-up person, hut tried to fly at children and bite them. He rejected cooked, meat with disgust, hut delighted in raw flesh and hones, putting them under hi s paw like a dog. They tried to make him speak, hut could get nothing from him but an angry snarl or growl.” The boy afterwards lived in the care of Captain Nicholetts at Sultanpur, and died three years later, when he was supposed to be about 12 years old. In another instance a man and his wife went out to cut wheat at Chupa, and when they were at work their child, who .had a scarred knee, was earried off by a wolf. Six years later the boy was seen with, a" wolf 'and three cubs, and was caught after a fierce resistance, and recognised by his scarred knee as the boy who had been carried off. He would eat nothing but raw flesh, and a year later escaped to the jungle.