“Their skins are of no value, and we do not therefore waste much powder and ball in shooting them.  The Indians, who are obliged to pay dear for their ammunition, are equally careful not to throw it away on objects that bring no remunerating value.  The natural consequence is, that the wolves are allowed to multiply; and some parts of the country are completely overrun by them.  The Indians catch numbers of them in traps, which they set in the vicinity of those places where their tame horses are sent to graze.  The traps are merely excavations covered over with slight switches and hay, and baited with meat, &c., into which the wolves fall, and being unable to extricate themselves, they perish by famine or the knife of the Indian.  These destructive animals annually destroy numbers of horses, particularly during the winter season, when the latter get entangled in the snow, in which situation they become an easy prey to their light-footed pursuers, ten or fifteen of which will often fasten on one animal, and with their long fangs in a few minutes separate the head from the body.  If, however, the horses are not prevented from using their legs, they sometimes punish the enemy severely; as an instance of this, I saw one morning the bodies of two of our horses which had been killed the night before, and around were lying eight dead and maimed wolves; some with their brains scattered about, and others with their limbs and ribs broken by the hoofs of the furious animals in their vain attempts to escape from their assailants.”

Although the wolves of America are the most daring of all the beasts of prey on that continent, they are by no means so courageous or ferocious as those of Europe, particularly in Spain or the south of France, in which countries they commit dreadful ravages both on man and beast; whereas a prairie wolf, except forced by desperation, will seldom or never attack a human being.

I have said that the danger that attends the traveller in the great prairies is trifling; but it is very different in the eastern swamps and mud-holes, where the enemy, ever on the watch, is also always invisible, and where the speed of the horse and the arms of the rider are of no avail, for they are then swimming in the deep water, or splashing, breast-deep, in the foul mud.

Among these monsters of the swamps and lagoons of stagnant waters, the alligator ranks the first in size and voracity; yet man has nothing to fear from him; and though there are many stories among the cotton planters about negroes being carried away by this immense reptile, I do firmly believe that few human beings have ever been seized alive by the American alligator.  But although harmless to man, the monster is a scourge to all kinds of animals, and principally to dogs and horses.  It often happens that a rider loses his track through a swamp or a muddy cane-brake, and then, if a new comer in East Texas, he is indubitably lost.  While his poor steed is vainly struggling in a yielding mass of mud, he will fall into a hole, and before he can regain his footing, an irresistible force will drag him deeper and deeper, till smothered.  This force is the tail of the alligator, with which this animal masters its prey, no matter how strong or heavy, when once within its reach.  M. Audubon has perfectly described its power:  I will repeat his words:—­