The references to this animal in the inventories recorded in the frontier counties are comparatively few, the number there being small on account of the depredations of wolves, which, by ravaging such sheep as the planters possessed, discouraged them from giving much attention to this branch of husbandry. The allowance made in the levies of Henrico County for the payment of prizes granted for the destruction of wolves was an important item of expense as late as 1700. In 1699, the levy for the six months ending with October, showed that the heads of thirty had been presented to the officers of the county for the purpose of securing the reward, which was two hundred pounds for each one if killed with a gun, or three hundred if caught in a trap.
In Lower Norfolk County, an appropriation was made in a single levy, in 1693, for fourteen wolves’ heads; in one of the levies in 1695 for twenty heads; two years
