mother, growling viciously, and would not allow us to touch them, until the men, bringing a couple of walrus-lines from the boat, threw nooses over their heads and secured them tightly, coupling them together like a brace of dogs. They were about the size of colleydogs, and no sooner did they feel themselves fast, than, quite regardless of our presence, they began a furious combat with one another, and rolled about among the mud, biting, struggling, and roaring, till quite exhausted."

Willingly would I here leave the question as regards the affection displayed even by grim polar bears one to the other, but justice compels me to state a shameful fact in the case of the two little bears above discussed. Let the narrator of the generous she-bear's story himself furnish the reader with the scandalous termination to the Arctic tragedy as witnessed by him.

"I am sorry to have to record the most horrible case of filial ingratitude that ever fell under my observation. Without doubt the old bear had sacrificed her life to her cubs; she could have escaped without difficulty if she had not so magnanimously remained to help them. When, however, we proceeded to open the old bear for the purpose of skinning her, the two young demons of cubs-having by this time settled their differences with each other-began to devour their unfortunate and too devoted parent, and actually made a hearty meal off her. When we finished skinning her the cubs sat down upon the skin, and resolutely refused to leave it; so we dragged the skin, with the cubs sitting on it, like a sledge, to the boat, and after another tussle with them, in the course of which they severely bit and scratched some of the men, we got them tied down under the thwarts of the boat, and conveyed them on board the sloop. . . . In the course of the day we got a sort of crib made for them on deck out of some spare spars and pieces of drift-wood, and while they were being thrust into it they resisted so furiously that one could almost imagine that they knew they were bidding adieu forever to the fresh breezes and icy waters of Spitzbergen."

HOW THE BEAR IS HUNTED.

BEARS, being most abundant in cold climates, were originally very numerous in the northern nations of Europe, and consequently formed very prominent objects of sport. The people of Poland were remarkably fond of bear hunting. It was their custom to take in

nets those they wished to preserve for "baiting." Once hampered, the hunters rode about him and pinioned the animal to the ground by securing each paw with large wooden forks, and thus kept the animal until he was securely bound with cords and rolled into a strong chest. Upon a named day the bear, furious with hunger, was turned loose and slain in the excitement of the chase. The Germans a century since were very fond of bear-baiting, and the English indulged in it in more recent times.

The Kings of Spain in their days of dawning chivalry made the bear hunt an affair of great state, and pursued the animal with selected hounds and fleet horses; yet they managed the etiquette of killing so critically that days would sometimes elapse before the hunt could have a true courtly termination. The Swiss were always famous bear hunters, and when the animal was plenty among the fastnesses of the Alps no sport could have been more manly than their capture from among the ravines and precipices of the snowcapped mountains. We have seen somewhere a fine picture representing the successful bear hunter mounted upon the shoulders of his fellow-citizens, and, as a conquering hero, carried into the town of Berne. In Norway, Denmark, and Finland the bear still roams in primitive independence. In those countries he is hunted and killed by many of the gentry, with a sentiment of sublimity attached to the encounter that gives the incidents a thrilling interest; for the

sturdy Northmen, disdaining all advantage, meet the enemy in single combat, and fight and kill with no other weapon than the sword or spear. Those persons, on the contrary, who destroy the bear for profit, have a novel kind of trap which they bait with honey. A large tree is selected containing a suitable limb, which limb is trimmed from all kindred branches, and with great labor is then bent down to the main trunk and secured in a prepared notch. On this powerful spring is hung, by chains, a wooden shelf, on which is placed a quantity of the coveted product of the bees' labor. The bear soon scents the rich treasure, climbs into the trap, and by his weight loosens the spring; the limb returns back to its natural position, leaving Bruin suspended mid-air, to be disposed of according to the caprices of his captors.

Siberia, however, seems more than any other country to be infested with the bear; and if the stories told of their numbers and their gregarious habits be true, they assume a formidable character nowhere else exhibited. Illustrative of our proposition is the story related of some Siberian peasants, who, while in the forests, got possession of two very young cubs and took them home. Three days elapsed, and the rough strangers had already begun to be familiarized with their hosts, when, on the night of the fourth day, dreadful howlings were heard in the village. The colonists, more curious than alarmed, went out to see what was the matter; but their consternation was extreme when they beheld the cottage which contained the cubs surrounded with bears, standing on their hind-legs and howling dreadfully. The villagers ran for fire-arms and hatchets, and a fierce combat ensued. The beasts rushed on the men, and although several were killed by the first discharge they furiously continued. their attack, and could only be routed when the cabin was set on fire; the flames created alarm, and the living bears retired. Eight animals lay lifeless on the ground—five men were killed and thirty wounded.

The bear's love of order, to which we have already alluded, is taken advantage of by the skillful backwoodsman to kill him with the spring-gun. We never knew but one hunter who was certain to be successful in this kind of sport; and, to use his own language, "he knew bar better than he did his dictionary." To set the spring-gun requires a most intimate knowledge of the animal's mental operations as well as of the physiognomy of the face of nature. We have known the size, the sex, and where the animal would be shot, perfectly delineated even before the instrument of death was poised in its

place. In preparing the spring, the hunter notices where the bear climbs a fence to enter a corn-field. The path being known, a careful examination is made of the foot-prints, and the exact height of the animal is thus ascertained. Two forked sticks are now prepared, and driven into the ground so that they will hold up the rifle at right angles with the path.

With

How nice must be the adjustment! The ball must penetrate the heart, else the animal will, though wounded, escape beyond the reach of the hunter. The bear, again, will step over certain things in his way and leap over others; now the trigger must be of that exact height that the bear will do neither, but push it aside with his nose. all these important demands made upon his sagacity, the hunter, in the proper place, lashes the rifle firmly to the rests we have described. Next he drives down other sticks, that will hold up a piece of grapevine across the path exactly as far beyond the rifle as it is from the bear's nose to his heart. This being done, a string is tied to the end of the grape-vine, drawn around a delicate stick, and fastened to the trigger. The rifle is then cocked, and the whole is so adjusted that the slightest pressure upon the grape-vine that crosses the bear's pathway will explode the deadly weapon. It is now sundown, and two or three hours have been consumed in adjusting the preliminaries of "this assassination." At the prescribed hour of night that characterizes the maraudings of Bruin, he pursues his familiar path, when he discovers a slight impediment in his way. Quick to take

alarm, he speculates-discovering that nothing more terrible than a grape-vine limb that might have fallen from a neighboring tree would intercept his progress, he contemptuously thrusts it aside; the messenger of death penetrates his body behind the fore-shoulder, enters his heart. A few convulsive throes, and this vigorous animal lies lifeless on the ground—the cunning of man being even more than a match for the highest development of the instinct of brutes.

California has always been remarkable for its ursine population. Its great central valley was called by the Indians, from immemorial times, "the home of the bear." In the Rocky Mountains are to be found the largest specimens of " the grizzlies," and they extend their habitations throughout all mountainous regions that reach to the Pacific. The native population of California, as is the case with all semi-civilized Mexicans, are excellent horsemen, and throw the lasso with the precision of the rifle-ball; these people occasionally, when possessed of unusual courage and industry, attack the forest monarch and make him bite the dust.

The hunters in California sometimes make large and dangerous bears drunk, when they have cubs in February, and are too savage. The bear goes to and from his den and cover-usually a hollow among rocks-by certain paths, called "beats." A bear will use the same beat for years, going by night on one beat, and in the day taking another more circuitous. You will often find a tree fallen across the beat, or you fell one, and wait till the savage has examined the new barricade, and finding that it is not a trap is willing to climb over it. Then you make a hole in it with an axe, large enough to contain a gallon of rum and molasses. Bears are greedy of sweets. In countries where there is wild honey they will overturn all obstacles to get at it. Of sugar and molasses, and sweet fruits, strawberries, mulberries, and the like, they are passionately fond. The bear reaches the log; he pauses over the hole full of sweet liquor; examines it, tastes of it, drinks all at a draught, and is drunk. And what a drunkenness is that! The brute rolls and staggers, rises and even bounds from the earth, exhausts his enormous strength in immense gambols, and falls at last, stupefied and helpless, an easy prey to the hunter.

Ross Browne gives a very spirited account of the capture of a grizzly bear by a party of native Californians in the Valley of Santa Marguerita. "I had passed," he says, "nearly across the valley, and was about to enter upon an undulating and beautifully timbered range of country extending into it from the foot-hills, when a dust

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