After a lively chase the nondescript was caught and
recognized (by the mark of a burn on his knee) as the Hindoo boy
that had disappeared in the rice-field. This boy would not eat
anything but raw flesh, and could never be taught to speak, but
expressed his emotions in an inarticulate mutter. His elbows and
the pans of his knees had become horny from going on all-fours
with his foster mother. In the winter of 1850 this boy made
several attempts to regain his freedom, and in the following
spring he escaped for good and disappeared in the jungle-forest
of Bhangapore.
The Zoologist for March, 1888, reproduced a remarkable pamphlet
printed at Plymouth in 1852, which had been epitomized in the
Lancet. This interesting paper gives an account of wolves
nurturing small children in their dens. Six cases are given of
boys who have been rescued from the maternal care of wolves. In
one instance the lad was traced from the moment of his being
carried off by a lurking wolf while his parents were working in
the field, to the time when, after having been recovered by his
mother six years later, he escaped from her into the jungle. In
all these cases certain marked features reappear. In the first,
the boy was very inoffensive, except when teased, and then he
growled surlily.
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