Although the native Indians did not, as a general thing, alarm the settler, there were wild beasts that did. For years the wolf, and the bear, and other ferocious animals were a source of terror and suffering. These animals, unaccustomed to the sight of man, were at first exceedingly tame. The settlers had but few fire-arms, and ammunition was very scarce; and the beasts knew no terror of them. They would even by day, come to the very door of the cabin, ready to seize the little child, or the scanty stock of poultry, pigs, or sheep, or calves, or salted provisions which had been left exposed, government stores, &c. And at night they made the most hideous and incessant howls, until morning. Many instances of their rapacity in robbing the scanty yard of the settlers, and of hair breadth escapes of individuals from wolves and bears, are mentioned. The destruction of stock by the wolf especially, caused the government of Canada, at an early date, (1793,) to legislate, with a view of gradually exterminating them; and an act was passed, granting a premium of four dollars to every one who should bring a wolf’s head to the proper officer; and two dollars for a bear’s. It was withdrawn with regard to bears, in 1796. “A traveller,” writing in 1835, remarks that in Kingston, resided a person who privately bred wolves to obtain the reward. But whether such an enterprising citizen did actually live in the good old town the writer saith not. Instances of narrow escapes from the wild beasts are still remembered; for instance, Lewis Daly, of Ernest town, was suddenly attacked by a bear within a mile of home. He sprung up a small tree, which bending over, he was in momentary danger of being reached. His cries brought help. In those early days, the settler, looked not for great things; schooled by the hardships of civil war, and inured to want, and half starvation, they asked not for riches. Enough to eat, and to be warmly clad, and housed from the winter’s cold, was the great point to which they stretched their longing hopes. Plenty in the future for the little ones, and for themselves, when they had grown old, was the single purpose of their toilsome life. A descendant of a first settler upon the front of Sidney, tells of his grandmother whom he had heard say, that her great ambition at first, was to raise vegetables, onions and other useful articles in her garden bed; to have poultry then, about her. After years she got the fowls; but a mink, in a single night killed them all. Then, again, they had got a breeding sow, and one morning a bear walked out of the woods, and with one hug destroyed all their hopes of future porkers.