132 Quadrupeds. 



' the fiend, 

 O'er bog, or steep, through strait, rough, dense, or rare. 

 With head, hands, wings, or feet, pursues his way. 

 And swims, or sinks, or wades, or creeps, or flies.' — Par. Lost, ii. 947. 

 With flocks of such -like creatures flying in the air, and shoals of no less monstrous 

 Ichthyosauri and Plesiosauri swarming in the ocean, and gigantic crocodiles and tor- 

 toises crawling on the shores of the primaeval lakes and rivers, air, sea and land must 

 have been strangely tenanted in these early periods of our infant world." — Buckland's 

 Bridgtvater Treatise, i. 224. Geological Transactions, N. S. iii. part 1 . 



Note on Wolves in Canada. You will think this is rather an un- 

 pleasant time for running about, the thermometer 20° below zero; but 

 it is the only time we Quebeckers have, and being out, I am deter- 

 mined to see as much as possible. Last week we went back twenty 

 miles beyond civilization, into some pine groves where lumber was 

 getting out — at Riviere du Loup ; and what is an uncommon occur- 

 rence here, a pack of wolves had been ranging the neighbourhood for 

 some time : we saw their tracks on the snow in every direction : — a 

 very large one had been taken alive the week before, and was safely 

 caged : he was caught in a fox-trap chained to a tree, but the chain 

 snapped and he got away. He was however tracked by a stout man 

 on snow-shoes, who followed the wolf a whole day, and at last came 

 up with him within a hundred yards of the spot where the trap was 

 set, both man and wolf regularly fagged out. Some men would have 

 killed the wolf on the spot, as government pays a reward of ten dol- 

 lars for every wolf's scalp brought in ; but K-- being at the shanty 



they sent for him to be in at the death ; and he, seeing the animal so 

 fagged, had his mouth and legs secured and the trap taken off, all 

 which the wolf suffered without making the slightest resistance or 

 struggle. — L.* 



Note on the Wolf in Canada. 



"Their mode of biting is very different from that of a dog; instead of retaining his 

 hold as a dog does, when he seizes his enemy, the wolf bites by repeated snaps, given, 

 however, with great force. As illustrative of this habit, I may mention a former in 

 New Hampshire, not very far from this place, who was one night awakened by a noise 

 in his hog-pen ; on looking out he saw what he supposed to be a fox on the low slop- 

 ing roof of the sty. He immediately came out in his shirt, but found that the animal 

 was a grey wolf, which, instead of making off", fiercely attacked him, rushing down the 

 roof towards him, and before the man had time to move back, the wolf had bitten his 

 arm three times, with these quick and repeated snaps, lacerating it from the elbow to 

 the wrist : then, however, he leaped from the roof to the ground, and by so doing lost 



* Communicated, together with the following notes on moose and beai*s, bearing the 

 same signature, by Jacob Hoyer, Esq. : being portions of a private letter, Mr. Hoycr 

 prefers our not publishing the writer's name. 



I 



