120 SPORTING ADVENTURES 



mad sometimes, especially if water is not near, and break 

 away for the hills, there to die and be lost to the "wolfeiv" 

 Some persons who follow " wolfing" as an addendum to their 

 regular trapping or hunting, sprinkle aniseed or assafoetida 

 over the poison and drag the bait over an area of several 

 square miles, dropping pieces here and there until camp is 

 reached, when they scatter several about in various directions, 

 or tie them to trees and rocks, at a snatching height, with 

 strings, so that they cannot be pulled away. This is a very 

 effective system, as the trail of the meat is easily followed by 

 its pungent odour, and when once the wolves get on its line 

 they seldom give up until they reach the end. As the poison 

 produces a burning thirst it would be well to have some water 

 convenient to the bait at intervals ; for when once they have 

 drunk this, they collapse immediately. If water is not near, 

 they often run for miles to obtain it, and this necessitates a 

 long walk in the deep snow and freezing atmosphere to get 

 their remains. 



Another means of poisoning them that is frequently em- 

 ployed, is to bore or cut a hole in a deep block of wood and 

 fill it with melted fat sprinkled with strychnine, and place 

 these blocks on the "round at irregular intervals. When the 



o o 



wolves iind them they must lap up the fat slowly, and before 

 they have cleaned out one cavity tliev are, in the majority <>!' 

 cases, turned into corpses. A little aniseed or assaftetida 

 scattered over the fat will help to attract the animals from 

 afar, and lead them to blocks which tliev might otherwise 

 miss. I have known forty coyotes to be collected in a space 

 of three hundred yards by both these means, but I should 

 consider the former the more preferable of the two. 



Trapping is of comparatively little avail, owing to the 

 cautiousness, sagacity, and timidity of all the wolf familv, 

 whether small or large; but if a trap is used it should be the 

 double-springed American make, as that will cling to anything. 



Some men earn from live hundred to fifteen hundred dollars 

 each in poisoning wolves during the winter and spring, and it 

 is no unusual thing for a parly of half a do/en to return \<> 

 the settlements alter one eampaign with from .-ix to twelve 



