FEBRUARY. 35 



every evening; and many of the neighbours. lost their sheep, 

 when left in the field : sometimes I have known as many as 

 ten sheep killed out of a flock in one night. 



C. What means are used for destroying them ? 



F. 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 pro- 

 ceed. 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 dan- 

 gerous 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 



