Page:The Zoologist, 1st series, vol 1 (1843).djvu/161

Rh his advantage: for the man succeeded in seizing him on each side of the neck, with his hands, and held him firmly in that position, till his wife, whom he called out, came up with a large butcher's knife, and cut the beast's throat. It was three months before the man's arm was healed: every incision, it was said, piercing to the bone.***Sometimes, when considerable havoc has been made among the sheep, a general assembly of the neighbourhood is called, who proceed to the swamp where the wolves are supposed to harbour by day, armed with guns, pitchforks or clubs; they then separate, to surround the swamp, and travel towards the centre, lessening the circle as they proceed. Whatever animals are in the swamp are of course roused, and are generally killed. One of these hunts I attended last fall, but we had not a sufficient number of men to be close to each other: we put up a black wolf, but he broke through the ring, and escaped, though shot at. But the more ordinary methods of taking them are by traps or poison, which are chiefly set in winter. When caught in a trap, the wolf is generally so cowed as to allow a man to go up to him and handle him like a dog; though it is a dangerous experiment. A very large grey wolf was poisoned a few weeks ago by J. Hughes: I went to his house to see it, but was disappointed, as he had sent it to Sherbrooke. He told me that it measured six feet in length, including the tail, and that it stood about three feet high: though very poor, it was as large round as a good-sized sheep: and probably would weigh about seventy pounds. The mode of setting poison is this: the kernels or seeds of nux vomica are grated or pounded, then mixed up with three or four times their bulk of fat or grease, and honey—wolves are very fond of the latter—and made into balls about as large as a hen's egg. These are placed in the woods, covered with a piece of flesh or tripe, and some offal is hung on a tree near the spot to attract the wolves by its scent. Hughes says, that a large space round the tree was beaten hard, by the wolf's walking round and leaping up, in endeavouring to reach the offal.—Gosse's 'Canadian Naturalist,' 33.

Note on Bears in Canada. If fruit is abundant, bears only visit the settlements when the corn is ripe, and then they sometimes play tremendous havoc with the oat-crop: sometimes however a single one will come in and worry the sheep, and W assured me, that this fall, near his mills, the farmers suffered much by one fellow in particular: three men sat up in a barn one night on purpose to shoot him, and although the beast came and prowled about for an hour or two, they could not summon courage to fire, he was so terrible grand:—these chaps were Canadians; an Irishman or an Indian would have acted differently. Next night some stouter hearts were prepared to give him a reception, but Master Bruin did not condescend to come, and escaped scot free.—L.

''Note on Bears in Canada. —'' "His chief food seems to be of a vegetable nature, grain, fruits and roots. He has an appetite for pork, however, and occasionally makes a visit to the farmer's hog-sty for the purpose of cultivating an acquaintance with the grunting inhabitants. Some years ago, one of my nearest neighbours was aroused in the night by a commotion in his hog-pen. Suspecting the cause he jumped up immediately, took his gun, and saw a bear in the act of getting over the fence with a fine hog, embraced very lovingly in