I have heard many accounts about other European wolves; yet, I believe, as large a share of these troublesome animals infested North America, on its first settlement, as any foreign country: great numbers of them still exist in places where population is thin, and the land rocky. They continue in the western states, and in Upper and Lower Canada. The Cobourg newspaper (March, 1840,) gives an account of a boy, eight years old, who was devoured by wolves a few days since in a wood in the town of Coleman, near Steep Mountain.

Their extirpation in New England was rendered necessary for the introduction of valuable breeds of Saxony and other sheep; bounties were offered on wolves' heads; farmers entered with spirit into their destruction from motives of patriotism and reward; sportsmen and dogs tracked them to their lairs, hunted them in the mountains, and waylaid and trapped them in their nightly thieving visits to farms in search of prey but, with all these modes of extermination, it is but a few years ago that they abounded in great numbers on the Monadnock mountain, about sixty or seventy miles north-west of Boston.

WOLVES ON THE MONADNOCK.

I need not tell my young readers, that this hill is situated in the towns of Jaffrey and Dublin, New-Hampshire, and is a prominent landmark, visible from great distances to the seaman or the traveller. The wanderer in the woods and forests near this mountain ever sees it high above all

other eminences, and he needs neither guide nor compass whilst the Great Monadnock is in view. The clouds sometimes strike its top or sides, in the shape of fogs and mists, and fertilize and water its vallies, whilst other lands are suffering from drought. In size the Monadnock is about five miles long from north to south, three miles broad, and three thousand seven hundred and eighteen feet in height. It abounded a few years since in dark forests, ledges, and precipices; no wonder therefore that the wolves were particularly fond of its endless hiding places, where they could live incommoded, and rear their young. Its summit is a bald rock, and its broad sides abound with broken granite, showing ancient volcanic action; its base is twenty miles in circumference.

But to return to the wolves. A few years since, either by accident or design, a great fire encircled, in one wide flame, all the elevated parts of this beautiful, though uninhabited mountain; burning the forests, underwood, and thick beds of leaves, the accumulation of hundreds or thousands of years, together with the soil itself around the peak. The fire continued for months, till the rains of autumn extinguished it. It was at this time that the poor wolves, bears, raccoons, foxes, squirrels, and snakes, were either dislodged or destroyed. Whether these wretched animals were roasted alive, or had to flee for their lives, I do not certainly know. Probably every living creature was burnt; for the fire commenced at the foot of the

belt round its sides, cutting off all retreat, and advanced towards the summit, driving the wolves before it, and finally enveloped them in flames.

This fire, however it may have originated, formed one of the completest traps for annihilating noxious animals that perhaps was ever known; the poor wolves were caught in their own gin. What men and dogs might have done in time, was done by accident in a moment. The fire proceeded without human aid or assistance, every change of wind accelerated its extent and fury. Its fuel and its victims were before it, and it marched onward to their destruction with weapons more potent than any of human invention. You have heard of immense Indian buffalo traps some miles in length or breadth; and of inclosures or labyrinths of great extent to entice and entrap deer and other game; but never perhaps did Indian sagacity invent so vast a trap or labyrinth as this fiery one on the Great Monadnock. Its outworks or lines of blazing circumvallation, extending twenty miles, gradually lessened in circuit as they mounted the hill, and tapered to a point, the last resort of the poor wolves. Here were congregrated probably all the tenants of a vast extent of wild woods and caves, from the rattlesnake down to the smallest reptile, ferreted and scorched out of their nests and lairs. Here were the whole tribe of resident depredators, from the prowling wolf and bear down to the chip-squirrel, woodchuck, and cunning fox; all their

You have heard of the vast prairie fires in the western states; but they can scarcely be compared with this mountain conflagration. It was a grand, awful, and sublime spectacle, especially during the darkness of night, every new gust of wind kindling up the illumination of some fresh turpentine grove, glowing like an immense firework, terrace above terrace, raised finally two or three thousand feet in height, and seemingly hanging and flickering in the sky; extending at the same time many miles, and moving onward with uncontrollable power. A western prairie fire leaves chances of escape; but here were none; the whole population of Monadnock wolves and their companions were hemmed in by flames, driven from their retreats and most secret haunts, trampled, crowded, and huddled together, pushed onward by fire and smoke to the very verge of the highest table rock, the place of their sacrifice, and the lasting monument of the final overthrow of the wolves of New-England.

This rash mode of getting rid of wolves by means of fire, however,was like that of the man in the old fable, who burnt up his barn, containing all the fruits of his labor and care, to get rid of rats. The remedy was worse than the disease, as is commonly the case with rash acts. The wolves might have been exterminated by other methods; a little perseverance and exertion would have destroyed

cept when asleep or wounded. largest animals, when wounded, entangled, or otherwise disabled, become their prey; but in general they only attack such as are incapable of resistance. They have been known to lie in wait upon the bank of a stream which the buffalo were in the habit of crossing, and when one of those unwieldly animals was so unfortunate as to sink in the mire, spring suddenly upon it, and worry it to death, while thus disabled from resistance. Their most common prey is the deer, which they hunt regularly; but all defenceless animals are alike acceptable to their ravenous appetites. When tempted by hunger they approach the farm houses in the night, and snatch their prey from under the eye of the farmer; and when the latter is absent with his dogs, the wolf is sometimes seen by the females lurking about in midday, as if aware of the unprotected state of the family. Our heroic females have sometimes shot them under such circumstances.

It is said by hunters that the smell of burning assafœtida has a remarkable effect upon this animal. If a fire be made in the woods, and a portion of this drug thrown into it, so as to saturate the atmosphere with the odor, the wolves, if any are within reach of the scent, immediately assemble round, howling in the most mournful manner, and such is the remarkable fascination under which they seem to labor, that they will often suffer

Of the few instances of their attacking human beings, of which we have heard, the following may serve to give some idea of their habits. In very early times, a negro ían was passing in the night, in the lower part of Kentucky, from one settlement to another. The distance was several miles, and the country over which he travelled, entirely unsettled. In the morning his carcass was found entirely stripped of flesh. Near it lay his axe, covered with blood, and all around the bushes were beaten down, the ground trodden, and the number of foot tracks so great, as to show that the unfortunate victim had fought long and manfully. On pursuing his track it appeared that the wolves had pursued him for a considerable distance; he had often turned upon them and driven them back. Several times they had attacked him, and been repelled, as appeared by the blood and tracks. He had killed some of them, before the final onset, and in the last conflict had destroyed several. His axe was his only weapon.

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On another occasion, many years ago,

negro man was going through the woods, with no companion but his fiddle, when he discovered that a pack of wolves were on his track. They pursued very cautiously, but a few of them would sometimes dash up, and growl, as if impatient for their prey, and then fall back again. As he had several miles to go, he became