covered the face of the country. Here our guide assured us the lair was, and indeed it looked a likely place to meet with queer customers, for in all my peregrinations I never saw a wilder country.

"After an hour's careful investigation, as I was crossing a patch of sand, I perceived the fresh foot-prints of a bear, which I instantly saw must be a very large one, from his long stride, and the size of his pugs, my hand hardly covering them. I followed up the trail for some distance, but lost it on some rocky ground, and was making casts in different directions in order to regain it, when some of the Bey's dogs, which had gone on some distance ahead, gave tongue, and immediately after I heard a sullen roar, followed by four or five dropping shots. I sprang upon a boulder of rock, and discovered an enormous bear in full pursuit of four or five Abbasians, who were running shrieking up the hill-side about two hundred yards distant. One of them in his frantic flight tripped over a stone, and before he could rise the brute was upon him.

"Although the hind-quarters of the animal only were presented to me, I threw up my rifle and let drive. Whether it was that my hand was unsteady that morning, or that I feared hitting the man, I know not, but the first bullet fell short; the second, however, struck fair, and the bear, with a sharp, hoarse cry of pain, quitted the fallen man and again made after the rest. I reloaded as quickly as possible, and ran up toward the wounded man, when I again saw Bruin for a moment, and got a couple of snap-shots at him as he bolted into some cover, having been turned by a straggling volley from some of my gang and the Bey's people. I found the youth who had fallen into the bear's clutches severely bitten in the shoulder, besides having his side clawed, and being considerably bruised and shaken, though not dangerously hurt; so after bandaging his wounds as well as I could I collected the people together and prepared to make another effort to drive the bear from his shelter.

"One of my people had seen him enter some thick under-wood, between two large rocks, and I tried to coax the dogs to go in and drive him out; but it was of no use, they only ran yelping round the thicket. Two of their number had been killed in the first onset, and some of the others severely mauled, which damped the courage of the rest; so finding that nothing could be effected with their assistance, I posted all the people in groups as safely as I could at one end of the cover, in case the game might break without showing fight, and followed up the trail, which was very plainly marked with blood, alone.

U

"I peered through the bush but could see nothing; so resting my rifle against the trunk of a tree I endeavored to swarm up in order to have a better look round. I had hardly raised myself a couple of feet from the ground, when, with a terrific roar, the brute, which must have got wind of me, charged. Luckily the bush was so thick in front that he could not get at me very easily, but had to make a turn, which gave me time to seize and cock my rifle, and as his monstrous head, with flashing eyes and open jaws, appeared about a couple of paces from me, I gave him the contents of both barrels, which almost stunned him, for he spun round and round, and I had time to follow it up with my smooth-bore, both bullets taking effect in the head, but such was the enormous tenacity of life that he managed to tear out of the cover, rolling over and over as he went.

"After reloading carefully I followed up and found him sprawling about on the ground moaning piteously. As I got out of the bush he caught sight of me and made another headlong charge, reeling from side to side as he came, but I stopped him with another bullet in the head which made him bite the dust. He rose again and got up on his hind-legs as if to look round, and while in this position he looked a fearful object, standing as he did with his fore-paws raised about seven feet high, and the blood pouring in torrents from his mouth. I now had a fair shot at his chest, and inflicted a mortal wound, for he rolled over and over, making his teeth meet in the root of a trec with his last dying effort. He proved to be the largest bear I ever met with, standing over four feet high at the shoulder, and from the number of men it took to lift him I should think he could not have weighed less than eight hundred pounds."

That polar bears are any thing but numerous, even in their natural breeding and abiding places, is evident from the fact that through an entire summer (1859) passed by Mr. Lamont and his hunting companion, Lord Kennedy, in and about the Northern seas, but eight bears fell to their rifles, that being, with the exception of three, the whole number seen and pursued; and that they were not novices in the art of hunting is proved by the fact that during the summer they "bagged" forty-six walruses, eighty-eight seals, and sixty-one reindeer. One bear slain by Lamont was an enormous fellow. He measured upward of eight feet in length; almost as much in circumference. He was four and a half feet high at the shoulder; his forepaws were thirty-four inches in circumference, and tipped with long, sharp, and powerful nails; his coat was beautifully thick and snowwhite, and hung several inches below his feet. The skin alone of

this animal weighed a hundred pounds, the entire carcase twelve hundred, and the pure fat stripped therefrom weighed nearly four hundred pounds.

Mr. Hall, whom we have already quoted, gives an interesting account of an encounter with a polar bear. "While," he says,“ we pursued our journey down the channel an exciting scene occurred. A polar bear, with its cub, was observed near the base of a bold high mountain. Immediately the dogs were stopped and the guns loaded. Koojesse" (a native accompanying Mr. Hall on his explorations)“ forgot that he was lame and sick, and prepared to join us in the hunt. I, with my spy-glass in hand, watched the bear's movements, and when all was ready the dogs were again started. They soon caught sight of the prey, and bounded forward. While drawing us with great speed, and when within 200 fathoms, the draught-line of the leader was cut, and away he flew toward the bear. Then another and another of the running dogs were cut loose and sent in chase, until all were free from the sledge and in pursuit.

"The bear, with her cub following, made her way over the broken ice direct for the mountain steep, which they at once began to ascend. One of the dogs had now neared them, and cautiously attacked the cub until it became separated from its mother. Then another dog sprang at the hinder part of the old bear, which turned and made a plunge at the dog, causing both to tumble headlong down the declivity. The fight now became earnest, and the dog yelped with pain, as the bear's paw came heavily upon him. Presently Bruin was obliged to turn again, and with head swinging to and fro, and roaring plaintively on hearing the cries of her cub, she re-ascended the mountain where it was impossible for dog or man to follow. The eleven dogs finally all took after the cub, which was part way up the mountain-side, and, as one seized it, over rolled cub and dog together, and so came tumbling dawn. While Koojesse and Sharkey sought to get a shot at the old one, I went forward simply to see the fray between young Polar and the dogs. On making my way from the main ice to the shore the cub made a rush at me with jaws widely distended. I instantly placed myself in position, prepared to receive the threatened shock. I received young Polar on the point of my spear, having directed it toward the neck, and pierced it through. The dogs at once flew to my aid, and soon the savage beast was flat over on its back."

To his surprise Mr. Hall found that his friends, the natives, did not congratulate him upon his success. They told him that they must

escape from this vicinity as soon as possible, and refused to listen to Hall's proposition that they should encamp there for the night. The bear, they said, would return in the night, and smelling the blood of her young, she would become enraged to madness and kill them all. They farther informed him that their people always avoided killing the young of a polar bear till the old one was dead, from the fact that the previous death of the offspring made the mother a hundredfold more terrible than she otherwise would be.

THIS feathered giant, which from its formation would seem a kind of connecting link between the two great families of aves and mammalia, inhabits the plains of Africa as far east as the deserts of Arabia. In the Indian Archipelago its representative exists in shape of the stately cassowary; while the western hemisphere furnishes the rhea, and Australia the emu.

When full grown the African ostrich stands as high as from seven to nine feet, and its weight has been known to exceed three hundred pounds. The keel-like breast-bone found in the bird of flight, and essential, as increasing materially the extent of surface from which the muscles of the breast take their origin, is absent in birds of the ostrich genus, whose wings at best serve them on land but as sails serve a boat on the water. The breast-bone or sternum of the ostrich forms merely a kind of osseous shield, covering comparatively a very small portion of the breast. The bird's only weapon of de