Wild Animals, Fish, Etc., Of Delaware County.

Deer seem to have been abundant until after the middle of the last century in the more remote townships, for in 1824, William Mode, then living on the west branch of the Brandywine, East Fallowfield township, Chester County, in his eighty-second year, related that as a boy he remembered when deer were so plentiful that their tracks in the wheat-fields in time of snow were as if a flock of sheep had been driven over them, and on one occasion his father returned home, having the carcasses of two, which he had shot. on his sled. Samuel Jefferis, who died at West Chester, Feb. 28, 1823, aged eighty-seven, stated that deer were common in his neighborhood in his early manhood, while Watson records that in 1730 a woman in Chester County (then including Delaware County) "going to mill spied a deer fast asleep near the road. She hit it on the head with a stone and killed it."

Black bears were frequently slain in the early days, and they generally met their fate because of their partiality for swine-flesh. The animal in search of this dainty morsel would approach near the settlement, and when he had selected a hog to his taste, he would spring suddenly upon his victim, grasp it in his fore-legs, and, erecting himself on his hind ones, would walk away with the porker squeaking at his unhappy situation. The cry of the hog usually brought the owner to the rescue of his property; but if he failed in overtaking the bear, he would in all probability capture the animal before many hours, for after eating sufficient to satisfy his appetite, he would return to devour the remainder of the carcass at his leisure. The settlers knowing this weakness, would set a heavy smooth jawed steel trap, attached to which was a long drag-chain ending with iron claws. The bear once caught in the trap, would drag the chain along the ground, and the claws catching upon the bushes would compel him to such exertion in freeing himself that be would become exhausted, and when overtaken, as his track would be readily followed, he fell a comparatively easy prey to the huntsman.

In 1721 a bear was killed near Darby, and yet ten or fifteen years later, when Nathaniel Newlin, of Concord, married Esther Midkiff, of Darby, her parents objected to the marriage, not because they had any disinclination to the suitor, but for the fact that he lived in the backwoods of Concord, and there were bears there; while of Mary Palmer, wife of John Palmer, of Concord, one of the first settlers of that township, it is recorded that she drove a bear away from a chestnut-tree with a fire-poker or poking-stick.²

But bears sometimes came closer to the settlement than "the backwoods of Concord." In the winter of 1740-41, so memorable for its extreme cold weather, it is related by Mrs. Deborah Logan that one night an old man, servant of Joseph Parker (then owning and living in the old Logan house, still standing on the north side of Second Street, above Edgmont Avenue, Chester), rose from his bed, and, as he was a constant smoker, he descended to the kitchen to light his pipe. The watch-dog was growling fiercely, and he went to the window to ascertain the cause. The moon was up, but partly obscured by clouds, and by that light the old man saw an animal which he took for "a big black calf" in the yard. He thereupon drove the creature out of the inclosure, when it turned, looked at him, and he then saw it was a black bear. The beast, it is supposed, had been in some way aroused from its winter torpor and had sought shelter from the cold, which may account for its apparent docility. The next morning it was killed in the woods about a half-mile distant from the house. William Worrall stated that when a lad in Marple a large bear made an inroad into the neighborhood and escaped with impunity, although great exertions were made to secure it.

The early settlers were much annoyed by the wolves, who preyed on their flocks and herds. In the Duke of York's laws, promulgated on the Delaware, Sept. 22, 1676, it was provided that if any person, "Christian or Indian," brought the bead of a wolf to the constable he was to be paid, "out of the publicque charge, to the value of an Indian coat," and the constable was required to nail the head over the door of his house, previous to which he must cut off both the ears, "in token that the head is bought and paid for." In 1672 the amount paid for wolves' heads was found to be burdensome, and it was ordered that the sum of twenty-five shillings per head should be reduced to twenty shillings, and the several towns were obliged to maintain wolf-pits. This was the law respecting the killing of wolves in force in the province from the date of the promulgation of the Duke's "Book of Laws," until the coming of Penn in the latter part of the year 1682. The eighty-sixth law, enacted by the first Assembly at Chester, provided that if any person, excepting an Indian, should slay a he wolf he should receive ten shillings, and for a she wolf fifteen shillings, out of the public fund. The wolf's head must be brought to a justice, who should cause the ears and tongue to be cut out. If an Indian killed a wolf he was paid five shillings "and the skin for his pains," which latter clause was stricken out of the law May 10, 1690, by the Assembly which met at New Castle, and Indians were placed on a like footing with the whites, receiving the same reward.

The law was more easily enacted than the money could be raised to pay the wolf-head bounty. The court previous to 1700 seemed constantly compelled to take action looking to the collection of taxes