In the event of escape, the fact may be accounted for in several ways.

Perhaps the cubs are already gorged when the child is thrown before them, or are being supplied with solid food before their carnivorous instinct is awakened, so they amuse themselves by simply licking the sleek, oily body (Hindoo mothers daily rub their boy babies with some native vegetable oil) of the infant, and thus it lies in the nest, by degrees getting the odor of the wolf cubs, after which the mother wolf will not molest it.

In a little time the infant begins to feel the pangs of hunger, and hearing the cubs sucking, soon follows their example.

Now the adoption is complete, all fear of harm to the child from wolves has gone, and the foster-mother will guard and protect it as though it were of her own flesh and blood.
"The mode of progression of these children is on all fours--not, as a rule, on the hands and feet, but on the knees and elbows.

The reason the knees are used is to be accounted for by the fact that, owing to the great length of the human leg and thigh in proportion to the length of the arm, the knee would naturally be brought to the ground, and the instep and top of the toes would be used instead of the sole and heel of the almost inflexible foot.