214 EXTINCT AND VANISHING MAMMALS 



however, with its mountains and extensive wilderness areas, 

 continued to harbor them up to comparatively recent years. 

 The last record for New Jersey is given as of one killed in 

 Wayne County in 1887, which was driven in from New York 

 State by dogs, but its ultimate source may be questionable. 

 Wolves seem to have remained common in the less settled and 

 wilder parts of Pennsylvania until about the middle of the last 

 century. Thus, Rhoads quotes Warren as authority for the 

 statement that "about the year 1845 wolves were abundant in 

 Tomhickon Valley" while between 1808 and 1820 Lucerne 

 County paid $2,872 in bounties for wolf scalps at about $5 

 each. As many as 273 wolves were killed in one of these years. 

 Another correspondent informed him that he saw many as late 

 as 1857 on the head waters of Pine Creek and Sinnemahonig 

 in Potter County, where the last one he knew of was killed 

 about 1875. Tomkins (1931) records a "last" wolf near 

 Williamsport in 1867 and one near Ralston, in 1872, in the 

 north-central part of the State. Many records are quoted for 

 the middle part of the nineteenth century, and Rhoads makes 

 the summary statement that they finally became "apparently 

 exterminated in Pennsylvania, within the last 10 or 15 years," 

 that is, in the middle or late eighties. More recent reports 

 lack authenticity, while of various cases investigated in which 

 bounties had been paid in later years some proved to be 

 deliberate frauds. In another it turned out that a wolf had 

 been brought from the West and had later escaped. In Elk 

 County, Pa., the last wolf is said to have been shot in 1891. 

 Probably the actual extinction of native eastern wolves in the 

 State may be set at about that date. A few seem to have re- 

 mained still in West Virginia wildernesses, where, according to 

 Fred E. Brooks, "what is supposed to have been the last gray 

 wolf in West Virginia was killed in Randolph county by 

 Stofer Hamrick in January 1900." 



Apparently wolves were found in North Carolina up to 

 about the beginning of the present century. At all events, 

 C. S. Brimley, writing in 1905, states that it was then "found 

 sparingly throughout the mountains. Dr. Donald Wilson re- 

 ports it from Graham County, Mr. R. W. Collett says it is 

 growing very scarce in Cherokee, Mr. Fain says there are a 

 very few in Buncombe [County]. Mr. H. H. Brimley, Curator 

 of the State Museum, informs me it has been taken in recent 



