For wolves they make traps and set guns baited in the woods, so that when he offers to seize the bait, he pulls the trigger, and the gun discharges upon him. What Ælian and Pliny write, of the horses being benumed in their legs, if they tread in the track of a wolf, does not hold good here; for I myself, and many others, have rid full speed after wolves in the woods, and have seen live ones taken out of a trap, and dragged at a horse's tail; and yet those that followed on horse back, have not perceived any of their horses to falter in their pace.
§ 90. They have many pretty devices besides the gun to take wild turkeys; and among others, a friend of mine invented a great trap, wherein he at times caught many turkeys, and particularly seventeen at one time; but he could not contrive it so as to let others in, after he had entrapped the first flock, until they were taken out.
§ 91. The Indian invention of weirs in fishing is mightily improved by the English, besides which they make use of seins, trolls, casting nets, setting nets, hand fishing and angling, and in each find abundance of diversion. I have sat in the shade at the heads of the rivers angling, and spent as much time in taking the fish off the hook as in waiting for their taking it. Like those of the Euxine sea, they also fish with spilyards, which is a long line staked out in the river, and hung with a great many hooks on short strings, fastened to the main line, about three or four feet asunder, supported by stakes, or buoyed up with gourds. They use likewise the Indian way of striking the light of a fire in the night, as is described in the second book, chapter 5, section 23.
§ 92. Their fowling is answerable to their fishing for plenty of game in its proper season. Some plantations have a vast variety of it, several sorts of which I have not yet mentioned, as beaver, otter, squirrels, partridges, pigeons, and an infinite number of small birds, &c.
§ 93. The admirable economy of the beavers deserves to be particularly remembered. They cohabit in one house are incorporated in a regular form of government, something like monarchy, and have over them a superintendent, which the Indians call pericu. He leads them out to their several employments, which consist in felling of trees, biting off the branches, and cutting them into certain lengths, suitable to the business they design them for, all which they perform with their teeth. When this is done, the pericu orders several of his subjects to join together, and take up one of those logs, which they must carry to their house or dam, as occasion requires. He walks in state by them all the while, and sees that every one bears his equal share of the burthen; while he bites with his teeth, and lashes with his tail, those that lag behind, and do not lend all their strength; their way of carriage is upon their tail. They commonly build their houses in swamps, and then to raise the water to a convenient height, they make a dam with logs, and a binding fort of clay, so firm, that though the water runs continually over, it cannot wash it away. Within these dams they'll inclose water enough to make a pool like a mill pond; and if a mill happen to be built on the same stream, below their dam, the miller, in a dry season, finds it worth his while to cut it, to supply his mill with water. Upon which disaster the beavers are so expert at their work, that in one or two nights' time they will repair the breach, and make it perfectly whole again. Sometimes they build their houses in a broad marsh, where the tide ebbs and flows, and then they make no dam at all. The doors into their houses are under water. I have been at the demolishing of one of these houses, that was found in a marsh, and was surprised to find it fortified with logs, that were six feet long, and ten inches through, and had been carried at least one hundred and fifty yards. This house was three stories high, and contained five rooms, that is to say, two in the lower, two in the middle story, and but one at the top. These creatures have a great deal of policy, and know how to defeat all the subtilty and stratagems of the hunter, who seldom can meet with them, tho' they are in great numbers all over the country.