Secondly, Of Beasts.[45]
The Bear, which are generally Black.[46]
The Bear, they live four months in Caves, that is all Winter; in the Spring they bring forth their young ones, they seldome have above three Cubbs in a litter, are very fat in the Fall of the Leaf with feeding upon Acorns, at which time they are excellent Venison; their Brains are venomous; They feed much upon water Plantane in the Spring and Summer, and Berries, and also upon a shell-fish called a Horse-foot; and are never mankind, i.e. fierce, but in rutting time, and then they walk the Country twenty, thirty, forty in a company, making a hideous noise with roaring, which you may hear a mile or two before they come so near to endanger the Traveller. About four years since, Acorns being very scarce up in the Country, some numbers of them came down {14} amongst the English Plantations, which generally are by the Sea side; at one Town called Gorgiana in the Province of Meyn (called also New-Sommerset-shire) they kill’d fourscore.
For Aches and Cold Swellings.
Their Grease is very good for Aches and Cold Swellings, the Indians anoint themselves therewith from top to toe, which hardens them against the cold weather. A black Bears Skin heretofore was worth forty shillings, now you may have one for ten, much used by the English for Beds and Coverlets, and by the Indians for Coats.
For Pain and Lameness upon Cold.
One Edw. Andrews being foxt,[47] and falling backward cross a Thought[48] in a Shallop or Fisher-boat, and taking cold upon it, grew crooked, lame, and full of pain, was cured, lying one Winter upon Bears Skins newly flead off, with some upon him, so that he sweat every night.
The Wolf.[49]
The Wolf, of which there are two kinds; one with a round-ball’d Foot, and {15} are in shape like mungrel Mastiffs; the other with a flat Foot, these are liker Greyhounds, and are called Deer Wolfs, because they are accustomed to prey upon Deer. A Wolf will eat a Wolf new dead, and so do Bears as I suppose, for their dead Carkases are never found, neither by the Indian nor English. They go a clicketing twelve days, and have as many Whelps at a Litter as a Bitch. The Indian Dog[50] is a Creature begotten ’twixt a Wolf and a Fox, which the Indians lighting upon, bring up to hunt the Deer with. The Wolf is very numerous, and go in companies, sometimes ten, twenty, more or fewer, and so cunning, that seldome any are kill’d with Guns or Traps; but of late they have invented a way to destroy them, by binding four Maycril Hooks a cross with a brown thread, and then wrapping some Wool about them, they dip them in melted Tallow till it be as round and as big as an Egg; these (when any Beast hath been kill’d by the Wolves) they scatter by the dead Carkase, after they have beaten off the Wolves; about Midnight the Wolves are sure to return again to the place where they left the slaughtered Beast, and the {16} first thing they venture upon will be these balls of fat.