THE (JRAY OR TIMBEll WOLF. 



559 



wolves, one of them black, in Clinton County, but does not give the 

 date. 



Mrs. Annie Anderson has contributed the following amusing 

 account from Oxford: ''It was about 1874 that Benton County 

 had its lion scare. Full grown hogs and sheep and even yearling 

 colts and calves were hurt so that they died or had to be shot. Some 

 of the farmers kept watch, and finally saw the animal but were too 

 much frightened to shoot, and seeing it in the half light, declared 

 it to be like a female lion full grown. As time went on more stock 

 was killed and the people in the central and north part of Benton 

 County were afraid to send their children to school. 



"Finally they organized a 'lion' hunt and hunters came from all 

 parts of the country. The excitement had become so great that an 

 American across the ocean read in the European papers that 'Ben- 

 ton County, Indiana, U. S. A., is infested by lions.' 



"When the day came the hunters formed in a circle, and com- 

 ing together near the center of the county, caught and killed the 

 'lioness,' which proved to be a large timber wolf, larger and fiercer 

 than any of his prairie brothers, and none of his kind have since 

 been seen." 



Chansler states that Mr. J ames Sprinkle helped to kill a wolf in 

 Gibson County in 1890. He also says that Mr. Nute Chambers 

 killed a white wolf with just a little tinge of blue on the under 

 parts on the McCray marsh north of Bicknell, Knox County, in 

 1880. McAtee records it from Brown County in 1902. In March, 

 1907, an animal was killed at Springville, Lawrence County, which 

 was pronounced a timber wolf by those who saw it. Mr. C. H. Cobb, 

 on whose farm it was killed, has furnished me with a somewhat 

 crude description of the animal, and from this I judge that the 

 identification was correct. 



December 19, 1908, a wolf was killed near ^lonroe City in 

 Knox County. Prof. Max IM. Ellis of Vincennes University saw^ 

 the animal and writes me that it was not a coyote but a timber 

 wolf, measuring about three and one-half feet from tip of nose 

 to root of tail. This record is more positive and reliable than any 

 others of recent date and removes all doubt concerning the sur- 

 vival of species up to the present time. 



Papers in Indianapolis and other towns in the State, as well as 

 in Chicago and other cities, contain frequent accounts of wolf 

 hunts in northern Indiana, but all of these that I have been able 

 to run down apparently refer to the prairie rather than the timber 



