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THE GUIDE TO NATURE 



mals that formerly lived in our land 

 from entire destruction. 



Your magazine is beautifully illus- 

 trated and the bird drawings are simply 

 splendid. I extend to you my best 

 wishes for success. 



Very truly yours, 



C L. Axdrews. 



Where Bears Abound. 



Pagosa Junction, Colorado. 



To the Editor : 



My wife has long desired to possess 

 a bear rug of her own killing. During 

 our recent vacation in the mountains 

 luck came her way. Before fortune 

 smiled, she had been visiting bear 

 traps for eight days out of ten, and had 

 been pretty continuously in the saddle 

 for that length of time. On one occa- 

 sion she and my partner trailed a big 

 fellow for three-quarters of a mile 

 through the woods only to find that he 

 had succeeded in getting his foot loose 

 from the trap. I am aware that a 

 lover of nature is not supposed to kill 

 animals, but to a lover of his family 

 and his stock the thing has a different 

 look. Bears are increasing in the vi- 

 cinity of our ranch and are a menace. 

 One seemed to have taken a contraci 

 to do the butchering for the lesser 

 lights of his kind, and one spring cost 

 us about two hundred and fifty dollars. 



lie would kill a three year old steer, 

 eat his fill and leave the carcass for his 

 gang to finish. Only the hide and the 

 bones were discarded as the remnants 

 of one night's banquet. This in addi- 

 tion to having them running at large 

 where children must go long distances 

 to school, makes them undesirable 

 neighbors. 



Nine have been trapped and killed in 

 the vicinity of our ranch this season 

 and every one was a male. The fe- 

 males seem to keep themselves and 

 their young out of trouble. 



I enclose a photograph of the bear 

 Mrs. Rogers shot with her camera and, 

 later, with a rifle. The woods were 

 deep and the day was cloudy. She had 

 therefore to risk a time exposure, and 

 bruin began to move his head, but she 

 closed the shutter in the nick of time. 

 Kindly criticise the result. The tim- 

 ber is spruce and quaking aspen. You 

 will note that the trap and chain are 

 attached to a clog by a clevis. The 

 clog is a piece of spruce tree that is 

 difficult for two men to carry. The clev- 

 is is fastened at about two feet from 

 the end so that the clog is sure to foul 

 everything in its line of movement and 

 yet a bear of any size thus hampered 

 will manage to travel for three-quar- 

 ters of a mile through thick timber in 

 one night. The one that got loose had 

 wound his chain around a spruce tree 



THE BEAR THAT MRS. ROGERS SHOT. 

 This bear killed many steers and menaced the children. 



