456 BIG GAME OF NORTH AMERICA. 



I may say that this enforced economical fast usually did 

 not terminate until the pigs were killed, in December. 



Apart from the -information which I have derived from 

 the authentic records of natural history, I have had a 

 somewhat intimate personal acquaintance with this fero- 

 cious bandit of the wilderness, through practical observa- 

 tion, as well as by the agency of steel-traps. * 



Now, it is a generally receive! opinion — like many other 

 popular fallacies — that the Fox surpasses all other animals 

 in cunning. I have had what I -consider good and sufficient 

 reason to doubt the correctness of this ancient conclusion. 

 I think anyone who tries to catch a Wolf in a steel-trap 

 will agree with me, that the. Wolf is a much more cunning 

 animal than the Fox. 



In my younger days, I trapped many Wolves and Foxes, 

 as well as fishers, minks, and muskrats. I used no pun- 

 gent oils or other extraneous attractions to wile them, but 

 simply matched my own intelligence against their instinct- 

 ive cunning; and in the case of the Wolf, I have often, for 

 many successive days, found myself completely circum- 

 vented. 



In proof of the persistent cunning of the Wolf, I may 

 relate a circumstance of some weight. While trapping, in 

 the month of December, 1840, I fastened a piece of liver 

 upon the knotty spike of a hemlock-tree, about three feet 

 from the ground, and set a well-concealed trap under it. 

 The Wolves frequented the spot every night; and although 

 they tramped a circle in the snow six feet from the tree, 

 or twelve feet in diameter, their dread of the trap pre- 

 vented them from touching the meat, notwithstanding the 

 fact that it remained in its position until the first day of 

 April. 



A short distance from the same spot, during- the same 

 winter, I caught three Wolves, twenty-seven Foxes, three 

 fishers, and one marten. I experienced more difficulty in 

 capturing the Wolves than all the others put together. 

 I took the Wolves in the following manner: I deposited a 

 quantity of pigs' livers and other offal in the center of a 



