HISTORY OF DERRYFIELD. 63 



to be reckoned with, especially in winter when food was scarce. 

 These destructive beasts were persistently hunted by early set- 

 tlers, and large numbers were trapped or shot, each capture at 

 once ridding the settlement of an enemy and giving the captors 

 a valuable pelt. The writer has never seen a wolf but has met 

 an old gentleman who saw one in his boyhood. He said they 

 looked at each other for a minute ; the boy then threw up his 

 hands, yelled and ran towards home, and the wolf ran the other 

 way. The cowardly nature of wolves and their habit of hunting 

 in packs is well known. 



Wolverine, Gulo liiscus. This diminutive, carnivorous glut- 

 ton has been supposed to be not nearer to us than Michigan, but 

 on the authority of the late William Little this animal was once 

 in New Hampshire and had been seen in Warren. 



Black Bear, Ursjis Americaims. This terror of sheep, calves, 

 pigs and woman-folk was common in this locality in the time 

 of the first settlers and long afterwards, disappearing about the 

 first of the present century, with the exception of wanderers, 

 which were seen here as late as 1834. Though classed with the 

 carnivora, the black bear is a vegetarian, subsisting mainly upon 

 edible plants and fruit, especially blueberries, of which he is ex- 

 tremely fond, and indulging in a diet of honey whenever he can 

 get at a wild hive. He is fond of green corn and created more 

 havoc in corn-fields than in any other way. He is not especially 

 dangerous, and stories of terrific hand-to-hand encounters with 

 bears are greatly exaggerated. Bears very rarefy permit them- 

 selves to be seen. The writer has climbed, fished and camped 

 among the mountains in the wooded regions about Albany and 

 Waterville, and from Livermore Falls to Ossipee, where they 

 are still somewhat numerous, but in twenty-five years of such 

 experience has not had the pleasure of seeing or even hearing a 

 black bear. We were finally permitted to see one from the top 

 of a stage-coach, on an excursion from the Crawford House to 

 the "Flume and Bowlder." When young the bear is playful, 

 easily tamed, and is an expert in the art of hugging. 



