200 THE PUMA AND CAT FAMILY. 



cowardly creatures, and too well fed b}^ fawns caught 

 in the spring, and fat bucks in the autumn — hares and 

 wild turkeys during the rest of the year — ever to get 

 very ravenous. 



As I knew them to be so destructive to game, I 

 used to carry with me a bottle of strychnine, with 

 which I ' doctored ' all the offal of my game, and I have 

 killed as many as five prairie wolves with the head, 

 neck, and entrails of one deer. In America there is, 

 or at least was, no restriction as to the sale of poisons, 

 the government wisely considering that if a person was 

 foolish enough to wish to destroy himself, the sooner 

 he did so the better. 



Occasionally I have known the prairie wolf run down 

 by a horseman, and its brains dashed out with the 

 stirrup. But it is killing work for the horse. 



Eed Texan Wolf {Ganis Lupus). This wolf, though 

 found in several other States, has been named the red 

 Texan wolf, for no other reason apparently, than that, 

 as the prairies of Texas are larger than are the ' grass 

 seas ' of other States, so this, being a prairie wolf, is 

 therefore more numerous there than elsewhere. 



The Gray Fox ( Vulpes Virginianus), is the only fox 

 I have seen in Texas, and I believe it is the only one 

 found in the extreme South, though many red foxes 

 are to be found in Greorgia and the Carolinas. I have 

 seen as many as three killed in one morning's hunt 

 on the Yegua (Mare) Kiver, close to Independence, 



