87 



hunger, the wolves of Russia and Siberia have, for ages, been a perpetual 

 terror to night travellers in the frigid and inhospitable countries refer- 

 red to ; in the wild forests, and dangerous fastnesses of which, they are 

 met with in such vast multitudes. 



In a land where the humanizing influences of a refined civilization } 

 ai*e even yet in their extreme infancy, the dead and wounded, for hun- 

 dreds of years, upon the battle-fields of intestine wars, were left to rot or 

 be devoured by wild animals. Js it any wonder then, that the wolves 

 of Russia have acquired a tasfe for human blood, and like the Bengal 

 Tiger, have become man-eaters ? 



In contradistinction to the habits of their European congeners, 

 North American wolves, although comparatively bold under the pres- 

 sure of hunger, commonly dread the presence of man, and fiee from him 

 in terror as do the deer and the black bear. 



I remember a stoiw current here in old times, about the fate of a 

 gigantic Indian named Clouthier — a rather Gallic designation for a pure 

 Algonquin — who was well known to the late " Squire Wright," the 

 original founder of the ancient village of Hull. My story may be true 

 in every particular, for Clouthier was a man of herculean proportions, 

 and almost superhuman strength. 



Clouthier was a gi-eat hunter, and had a fine field for his prowess 

 and skill in the neighborhood of Hull, which then abounded with bears, 

 deer, moose, wapiti, otters and beaver. In one of his hunting excursions 

 he was attacked and torn to pieces by a large pack of wolves. It was 

 surmised by those who afterwards discovered his bones, and fragments 

 of his clothing, that after he had shot one of bis assailants with his 

 single-barrelled flint-lock gun, he had drawn his tomahawk from his 

 belt, and fought desperately for his life. 



From the number of skulls and other portions of their bonts found 

 at the scene of the tragedy, it was calculated that the indian had killed 

 fourteen of the wolves before he was overpowered. The dead wolves 

 had all been devoured by their fellows, nothing of them being left but 

 their bones. Like his scriptural prototype, the Algonquin Sampson 

 did not fall unavenged. 



If this story be correct — and it was considered quite authentic by 

 the old inhabitants of Hull and Bytown — it is the only instance of 



