The Grizzly Bear, — Ursus Ferox. 107 



they could load their pieces. Several times the bear was struck, but each 

 shot seemed only to direct his fury towards the hunter ; at last he pursued 

 them so closely that they threw their guns and pouches, and jumped from a 

 perpendicular bank, twenty-five feet high, into the river. The bear sprang 

 after them, and was very near the hindmost man, when one of the hunters on 

 the shore shot him through the head and finally killed him. When they 

 dragged him on shore, they found that eight balls had passed through his 

 body in different directions. 



" On another occasion the same enterprising travellers met with the lar- 

 gest bear of this species they had ever seen ; when they fired he did not 

 attempt to attack, but fled with a tremendous roar, and such was his tena- 

 city of life, that although five balls had passed through the lungs, and five 

 other wounds were inflicted, he swam more than half across the river to a 

 sand bar, and survived more than twenty minutes. This individual weighed 

 five or six hundred pounds at least, and measured eight feet seven inches and 

 arhalf from the nose to the extremity of the hind feet, five feet ten inches and 

 a-half round the breast, three feet eleven inches round the middle of the fore- 

 leg, and his claws were four inches and three-eighths long. 



" In fact the chance of killing the grizzly bear by a single shot is very 

 small, unless the ball penetrates the brain, or passes through the heart. This 

 is very difficult to effect, since the form of the skull, and the strong muscles 

 on the side of the head, protect the brain against every injury except a very 

 truly aimed shot, and the thick coat of hair, the strong muscles and ribs, 

 make it nearly as difficult to lodge a ball fairly in the heart. 



'' Governor Clinton, in the notes to his discourse delivered before the 

 Literary and Philosophical Society of New York, says, " that Dixon, an 

 Indian trader, told a fi'iend of his, that this animal had been seen fourteen 

 feet long ; that notwithstanding its ferocity, it had been occasionally domes- 

 ticated, and that an Indian belonging to a tribe on the head waters of the 

 Mississippi, had one in a reclaimed state, which he sportively directed to go 

 into a canoe belonging to another tribe of Indians, then returning from a 

 visit : the bear obeyed, and was struck by an Indian. Being considered as 

 one of the family, this was deemed an insult, resented accordingly, and pro- 

 duced a war between these nations." 



" Mr. John Dougherty, a very experienced and respectable hunter, who 

 accompanied Major Long's party during their expedition to the Rocky 

 Mountains, several times very narrowly escaped from the grizzly bear. — 

 Once, while hunting with another person on one of the upper tributaries of 

 the Missouri, he heard the report of his companion's rifle, and when he looked 

 round beheld him at a short distance endeavouring to escape from one of 

 these bears, which he had wounded as it was coming towards him. Doug- 

 herty, forgetful of every thing but the preservation of hii friend, hastened to 

 call oft the attention of the bear, and arrived in rifle-shot distance just in 

 time to effect his generous purpose. He discharged his ball at the animal, 

 and was obliged in his turn to fly ; his friend, relieved from immediate dan- 

 ger, prepared for another attack by charging his rifle, with which he again 



