504 
The Ohio Naturalist. 
[Vol. VI, No. 6, 
NOTES ON THE FORMER OCCURRENCE OF CERTAIN 
MAMMALS IN NORTHERN OHIO. 
E. L. Moseley. 
Mr. Porter W. Wright has killed more big^game than any 
other man of my acquaintance in this region. He owns a good 
deal of land in Sandusky County near the west end of Sandusky 
Bay, and has lived there since 1836, when he was two years old. 
Along w'ith notes made at his house last year I will give some 
others obtained previously from old residents, some of w^hom 
are no longer living. 
Mr. Wright often saw fifteen or twenty deer at a time and 
they used to eat much of the corn in the fields. Men cut brush 
to keep them out of the corn fields. They would eat within 
tw’enty rods of a man and seme were shot from the houses. 
They were plentiful enough to furnish all the meat desired, and 
there was no market for them. The last was seen about 1859. 
In Erie County deer were often seen on the Oxford Prairie 
feeding, and were plentiful as late as 1830. 
In Paulding County, W. H. Todd killed a deer in 1881. In 
Wood County, on Scotch Ridge, Isaac Ward shot a deer in the 
Fall of 1893. 
Mr. Wright does not know of any bison in his time, but he 
saw many of their horns, and bones near Castalia. 
Elk antlers have been reported found in Erie County. 
Bears were seen in various places in Sandusky County but 
were scarce after 1845. Mr. Wright thinks there w'ere none of 
these animals after he began to hunt deer in 1849. On Put- 
in-Bay when Daussa’s Cave w'as being enlarged in order to make 
it accessible to the public, part of the lower jaw bone of a bear 
was found. W. H. Todd told me a bear was killed in Paulding 
County in 1881. 
Mr. Wright remembers having seen panthers when he was a 
boy. Mr. Gurley says that years ago there were many wild cats 
in Erie Countv. A wild cat w'as killed in Wood Countv about 
1878. 
Mr. Wright killed three otters about 1874. His wife thinks 
the last one was caught there about 1879. Near Sugar Rock, 
Catawba Island, one was seen swimming July 8, 1897, by Mr. 
Coville; and I was told that about the same date otters were 
caught occasionally near Toussaint, Ottawa County. 
Wolves killed several sheep near Clyde in 1835 or 1836. Mr. 
Wright thinks the last one south of the Sandusky River was 
seen about 1854, but that there were some in Ottaw'a County 
later. In the museum at the Indiana State House is a mounted 
specimen of a wolf killed in Jasper County, Indiana, in 1904. 
