The Overrated Peccary. This reminds me that the collared peccary has been credited with a degree of courage that has been much exaggerated. While a hunted and cornered peccary will fight dogs or men, and put up a savage and dangerous defense, men whom I know in the peccary belt of Mexico have assured me that a drove of peccaries will _not_ attack a hunter who has killed one of their mates, nor keep him up a tree for hours while they swarm underneath him waiting for his blood. I have been assured by competent witnesses that in peccary hunting there is no danger whatever of mass attack through a desire for revenge, and that peccaries fired at will run like deer. A Black Bear Killed a Man for Food. There is on record at least one well-authenticated case of a black bear deliberately going out of his way to cross a river, attack a man and kill him. On May 17, 1907, at a lumber camp of the Red Deer Lumber Company, thirty miles south of Etiomami on the Canadian Northern Railway, Northwest Territory, a cook named T. Wilson was chased by a large black bear, without provocation, struck once on the head, and instantly killed. The bear then picked him up, carried him a short distance, and proceeded to _eat_ him. Ten shots from a .32 calibre revolver had no effect. Later a rifle ball drove the bear away, but only after it had eaten the left thigh and part of the body. (Forest and Stream, Feb. 8, 1908.) The Status of the Gray Wolf. In America wolves rarely succeed in killing men, although they often follow men's trails in the hope of spoil of some kind. But there are exceptions. In 1912, around Lake Nipigon, Province of Ontario, Canada, there existed a reign of terror from wolves. The first man killed was a half-breed mail-carrier. Then, in December, another mail-carrier, who was working the lumber camps north of Lake Nipigon, was killed by wolves and completely devoured. The snow showed a terrible struggle, in which four large wolves had been killed by the carrier. In Russia and in France in the days preceding the use of modern breech-loading firearms, the gray wolves of Europe were very bold, and a great many people were killed by them. Killings by Wild Beasts in India. The killing by wild beasts of unarmed and defenseless native men, women and children in India is a very different matter from man-killing in resourceful and dangerous North America. The annual slaughter by wild beasts in Hindustan and British Burma is a fairly good index of the courage and aggressiveness of the parties of the first part. In India during the year 1878, in which we were specially interested, the totals were as follows: Persons killed by elephants, 33; tigers, 816; leopards, 300; bears, 94; wolves, 845; hyenas, 33; snakes, 16,812. Of course such slaughter as this by the ridiculous hyenas and the absurd sloth bears of India is possible only in a country wherein the swarming millions of people are universally defenseless, and children are superabundant.