This knock-down argument in favour of big mosquitoes used the Hoosier up, and the logician started on a new track, to explain how numerous bear were in his "diggins," where he represented them to be "about as plenty as blackberries, and a little plentifuler.”
1843, “The Big Bear of Arkansas by T. B. Thorpe, Esq. of Louisiana”, in William T. Porter, editor, The Big Bear of Arkansas and Other Sketches Illustrative of Characters and Incidents in the South and South-west, Philadelphia: T. B. Peterson And Brothers, page 18