Grizzly-bear 1051 



over your foot if you are still; the Moose will flee on the 

 slightest intimation that man is within a mile. And the 

 Grizzly, too, accepts the common creed. No longer the arro- 

 gant despot of all trails and ranges, he has retreated to 

 secluded fastnesses, to wild and inaccessible regions of thicket 

 and swamp. He is changed in temper as in life, and the 

 faintest whiff of man-scent is now enough to drive him miles 

 away. 



And what is it that has made this change ? — that has 

 turned the heart of the mountain terror and made him shyer 

 than ever fawn or hare ? The educating force was modern guns. 

 Repeating rifles have instilled the idea that man is master — 

 omnipotent, merciless — therefore shun the onset they can end 

 in only one way. The fallen monarch is become a fugitive 

 in his own kingdom. In many parts of the country, particularly 

 the south and east, his kind is extinct. In a little while he will 

 have left the United States, or will continue only as a pensioner 

 in the Yellowstone Park. And I, for one, would gladly see the 

 total abolition of all bounty laws on the Grizzly's head. I 

 should welcome a movement to prevent his extinction. His 

 day and sceptre are gone; right well he knows that; he is 

 harmless now, and is, moreover, a magnificent animal, whose 

 extinction would be just such a loss to zoology as the destruc- 

 tion of St. Peter's would be to the world of art. 



