Agropelters are violent and aggressive critters found in lumberwoods from Maine to Oregon. Injury and death blamed on freak falling branches are always the work of an agropelter, who hates lumberjacks for their invasion of its territory.
"The Agropelter
Brachiipotentes craniofractans
A peevish quadruped, highly resentful of the logger's intrusion upon his woods home. Common, and well-known from coast to coast, but limited to the Northern forests. The beast's ugly disposition is attributed in part to its diet of hoot-owls, high-holes, and dozy wood.
As with many of these elusive, nimble creatures, a detailed description is lacking. But it is fully established that the Agropelter (sometimes called the Widow-maker) has a sturdy body topped with villainous, ape-like countenance. His outstanding equipment is a pair of long, muscular arms. Stealthily reaching out from his lair in the top of a hollow tree, he can snap off a heavy dead limb and either drop or hurl it with deadly accuracy on the pate of the woodsman passing beneath.
He is a marvellously rapid tree-climber and traveller, swinging himself, acrobat-fashion, from limb to limb. In picking a home site, he selects a tree having numerous dead branches and dozy upper bole, and which stands handy to a frequently travelled trail. He quickly eats out a roomy nest. The pups (born on February 29) always arrive in odd numbers." - Fearsome Critters 1939 by Henry H. Tryon