NORTH AMERICA AND THE WEST INDIES 



obliged at once to take active measures to prevent them from 

 seriously depleting their precious cattle and sheep brought 

 with so much labor from England. No doubt too they feared 

 the attack of wolves in packs against themselves, particularly 

 if traveling alone or at night, yet there seems to be no authentic 

 instance of anyone actually being killed by wolves, though 

 many a person going after dark to a neighbor's hurried his 

 footsteps on hearing a wolf howl. Apparently the Indians 

 along these coasts were little afraid of wolves (for they had no 

 livestock), but occasionally they caught them in traps, and 

 wolf bones in small amount occur in the Indian shell heaps. 

 The early settlers often kept their sheep on the smaller outer 

 islands where they were comparatively safe and unable to 

 stray. But flocks or cattle in pasture were in constant danger 

 even when in pens near the houses. The early records of 

 Plymouth and Massachusetts Bay colonies show that a de- 

 termined campaign was waged against wolves. Bounties were 

 offered for adult wolves and lesser ones for whelps, and the 

 heads of wolves brought in for the reward were publicly ex- 

 posed on hooks at the meetinghouse. The Indians were active 

 in this campaign and secureVl their share of the bounties. 

 Yet for nearly a century wolves continued to be a menace to 

 stock. In the "History of Cape Cod" Freeman relates that 

 in 1717, the early settlers discussed a project for erecting a 

 high fence of palisades or boards between Sandwich and Ware- 

 ham to shut off the outer Cape completely as a safe pasture 

 for the livestock against the wolves. But the scheme finally 

 was abandoned, since the several towns involved could not 

 agree on their proportionate share of the expense, while those 

 outside the Cape did not see why the wolves should be retained 

 on their side of the fence! Many of the towns maintained 

 " wolf pits," dug deep enough so that a wolf could not jump out, 

 the inwardly sloping sides sometimes smoothly faced with 

 stone, and the whole baited with fresh meat. Wolves jumping 

 in for the bait were unable to leap out and were later killed. 

 The remains of such a trap are said still to exist in the Lynn 

 Woods park in Massachusetts. The idea was doubtless taken 

 from the Indians. 



Even down to the time of the American Revolution wolves 

 were fairly frequent in or near the settled parts of New Eng- 

 land, but soon after, the unremitting fight against them had so 



