236 The Home of the Wolvere?ie and Beaver. 



a great proof of their being excellent providers. 

 With respect to the fierceness of this animal which 

 some assert, I can say little, but I know them to be 

 beasts of great courage and resolution, for I once 

 saw one of them take possession of a deer that an 

 Indian had killed, and though the Indian advanced 

 within twenty yards, he would not relinquish his 

 claim to it, but suffered himself to be shot standing 

 on the deer. I once saAV a similar instance of a 

 lynx, or wild cat, which also suffered itself to be 

 killed before it would relinquish the prize. The 

 wolverenes have also frequently been seen to take 

 a deer from a wolf before the latter had time to 

 begin his repast after killing it. Indeed their 

 amazing strength, and the length and sharpness of 

 their claws, render them capable of making a strong 

 resistance against any other animal in those parts, 

 the bear not excepted. As a proof of their amazing 

 strength, there was one at Churchill some years 

 since, that overset the greatest part of a large pile 

 of wood (containing a whole winter's firing, that 

 measured upwards of seventy yards round), to get 

 at some provisions that had been hid there by the 

 Company's sei-vants, when going to the factory to 

 spend the Christmas holidays. The fact was, this 

 animal had been lurking about in the neighbour- 

 hood of their tent (which was about eight miles 



