WOLF DAYS IN PENNSYLVANIA. 



carries the germ of trouble. Consequently the panther 

 and the wolf were regulated in numbers ; by the supply 

 of aged and weakly elk and deer ; the Indian, sworn 

 foe of the panther, helped to keep the "Pennsylvania 

 Lion" within bound's — but there was no warfare of 

 extermination until the white man came. I\Iost of the 

 early hunters came of peasant stock, unused to carry- 

 ing firearms in the old country, and with deeply rooted 

 feelings against private parks which preserved game. 

 Once loosed in a new continent, given arms and 

 freedom, they set out to slaughter everything in sight. 

 They wanted excuses for wholesale killing; the 

 wolves' alleged thefts of calves, pigs and sheep gave it 

 to them. If they had killed less of the wolves' food 

 supply no farm stock would have been taken. When 

 the last wolf was gone it was found that just as many 

 sheep were killed, revealing the degs as the real mis- 

 creants. Wolves were blamed for "numing" deer ; the 

 wolves are gone, but deer are being run to death daily 

 by dogs in the Pennsylvania mountains. In Africa 

 the same horrible story is being re-enacted. The 

 zebras break down wire fences, they must go ; the 

 rhinosceroses frighten the oxen, they must go ; the 

 hippos are dangerous to navigation, they must go ; the 

 elephants trample the grain fields, they must go ; the 

 girafifes knock down the telegraph wires, they must 

 go ; the lions are bloodthirsty, they must go, and so on, 

 every animal is marked for extermination by the 

 rapacious settlers. And only too often the powers 

 that be sitting in London, Paris or Berlin accjuiesce 



