MISCELLANEOUS NOTES. 277 



We then enquired into the facts. Ii appeared the man, with a little boy, was 

 silting or lying smoking a beerie on the ground near a path about 2oO yards 

 from the village in the early morning, and whilst so engaged abear came behind 

 him and at once, without any provocation, attacked him. The little boy ran off 

 at once for assistance, and the bear, after severely mauling the man in the way 

 1 have mentioned, left him. Several men were near at hand, and they marked 

 the bear with two cubs into a jungle close by, where she laid up for the day. 

 Men got up trees all round this jungle, and there they remained till we came up. 

 We went to the spot where the struggle took place, and then we saw the 

 marks of the bear's feet on the ground ; but this was not very plain, because a 

 part of the struggle took place on sheet rock. There was a path from the 

 village close by with trees growing about, forming a grazing jungle. The spot 

 was on a table-land about 8U0 feet above the plain below, and close by was a 

 thiek jungle on the side of the hill, in which the bear and her cubs were fast 

 asleep. I should say that the bear was making to this jungle for the purpose 

 of spending the heat of the day therein, and that she saw this man in her 

 road and at once went for him. 



We had very little trouble in killing the old she-bear and her two f -grown 

 cubs. We had a large number of beaters and the beat was arranged excellently, 

 our trees being chosen with great judgment by our Shikari. Mr. Barton 

 killed the old she-bear ; he hit her well behind the shoulder and she ran into a 

 nullah with her cubs, and there I had a shot at her also. The cubs kept close 

 to her and we killed them both close to the mother. 



The man died on the second day. 



From inquiries we made we found tbis bear had, without provocation, in the 

 last year attacked four or five other people in the neighbourhood and mauled 

 them, but we heard of no one being actually killed by her. When we got her 

 home and were taking her skin off, we found a bullet in her forearm surrounded 

 by a thick sac of a tough sort of skin, and close by was a large splinter 

 of bone about \L\ inches long. The wound had quite healed up, but 

 there was a deal of pus near that part of the bone from whence the splin- 

 ter had come. It was evident that this splinter had been giving great pain to 

 the bear, and to this I attribute its man-killing proclivities. The pain was 

 probably always sufficient to keep the bear's recollection alive to the fact that 

 the primary cause of that pain was attributable to man, and whenever a man 

 came anywhere near, the bear's anger was aroused, in just the same way that 

 a wounded tiger will always attack any one coming near him. 



It has been frequently said that a bear always attacks a man's face when 

 he goes in at him. If this is so, this is another instance of the correctness of 

 this rule. 



REGINALD GILBERT. 



Bombay, July, 1891. 



