[ Costello / "Wolves" ]
Dudley Costello (1803 - 1865) was an English journalist and author.
This essay, which first appeared in the February 7, 1857 issue of Charles Dickens' literary magazine Household Words, is an overview of wolf species and behavior, and quintessentially Victorian in its anthropomorphic moralization of wolves as vile, despicable creatures.
Discussing the wolves of the norther Great Plains in the U. S., Costello observes
There are several varieties of the wolf species in this country, the most formidable and most numerous of which are white, often sneaking about in gangs or families of fifty and sixty in number, appearing in the distance on the green prairies like nothing but a flock of sheep. Many of these animals grow to a very great size, being, I should think, quite a match for
the largest Newfoundland dog. (XV: 127).