Wolves and Wolf -Hounds. 389 



poisoned, and a number of others have fallen victims to 

 their greediness, the cowboys surprising them when 

 gorged to repletion on the carcass of a colt or calf, and, 

 in consequence, unable to run, so that they are easily rid- 

 den down, roped, and then dragged to death. 



Yet even the slaughter wrought by man in certain 

 localities does not seem adequate to explain the scarcity 

 or extinction of wolves, throughout the country at large. 

 In most places they are not followed any more eagerly 

 than are the other large beasts of prey, and they are 

 usually followed with less success. Of all animals the 

 wolf is the shyest and hardest to slay. It is almost or 

 quite as difficult to still-hunt as the cougar, and is far more 

 difficult to kill with hounds, traps, or poison ; yet it 

 scarcely holds its own as well as the great cat, and it does 

 not begin to hold its own as well as the bear, a beast cer- 

 tainly more readily killed, and one which produces fewer 

 young at a birth. Throughout the East the black bear 

 is common in many localities from which the wolf has 

 vanished completely. It at present exists in very scanty 

 numbers in northern Maine and the Adirondacks ; is 

 almost or quite extinct in Pennsylvania ; lingers here and 

 there in the mountains from West Virginia to east Ten- 

 nessee, and is found in Florida ; but is everywhere less 

 abundant than the bear. It is possible that this destruc- 

 tion of the wolves is due to some disease among them, 

 perhaps to hydrophobia, a terrible malady from which it 

 is known that they suffer greatly at times. Perhaps the 

 bear is helped by its habit of hibernating, which frees it 

 from most dangers during winter ; but this cannot be the 



