children, or actually have one of them in his mouth.  In all parts of India, Hindoos have a notion that the family of a man who kills a wolf, or even wounds it, goes soon to utter ruin; and so also the village within the boundaries of which a wolf has been killed or wounded.  They have no objection to their being killed by other people away from the villages; on the contrary, are very glad to have them so destroyed, as long as their blood does not drop on their premises.  Some Rajpoot families in Oude, where so many children are devoured by wolves, are getting over this prejudice.  The bandha is very ornamental to the fine mhowa and mango trees, to the branches of which it hangs suspended in graceful festoons, with a great variety of colours and tints, from deep scarlet and green to light-red and yellow.

Wolves are numerous in the neighbourhood of Sultanpoor, and, indeed, all along the banks of the Goomtee river, among the ravines that intersect them; and a great many children are carried off by them from towns, villages, and camps.  It is exceedingly difficult to catch them, and hardly any of the Hindoo population, save those of the very lowest class who live a vagrant life, and bivouac in the jungles, or in the suburbs of towns and villages, will attempt to catch or kill them.  All other Hindoos have a superstitious dread of destroying or even injuring them; and a village community within the boundary of whose lands a drop of wolf’s blood has fallen believes itself doomed to destruction.  The class of little vagrant communities above mentioned, who have no superstitious dread of destroying any living thing, eat jackalls and all kinds of reptiles, and catch all kinds of animals, either to feed upon themselves, or to sell them to those who wish to keep or hunt them.

But it is remarkable, that they very seldom catch wolves, though they know all their dens, and could easily dig them out as they dig out other animals.  This is supposed to arise from the profit which they make by the gold and silver bracelets, necklaces and other ornaments worn by the children whom the wolves carry to their dens and devour, and are left at the entrance of their dens.  A party of these men lately brought to our camp alive a very large hyaena, which was let loose and hunted down by the European officers and the clerks of my office.  One of the officers asked them whether this was not the reason why they did not bring wolves to camp, to be hunted down in the same way, since officers would give more for brutes that ate children, than for such as fed only on dogs or carrion.  They dared not deny, though they were ashamed or afraid to acknowledge, that it was.  I have myself no doubt that this is the reason, and that they do make a good deal in this way from the children’s ornaments, which they find at the entrance of wolves’ dens.  In every part of India, a great number of children are every day murdered for the sake of their ornaments, and the fearful examples that come daily to the knowledge of parents, and the injunctions of the civil authorities are unavailing against this desire to see their young children decked out in gold and silver ornaments.