48 ZOOLOGY. 



base of Lassen's butte, they are very numerous. This region is partially covered with a forest 

 of rather scattered trees of immense size, of sugar and yellow pine, western balsam fir and liboce- 

 dras, with wide intervals covered with a dense growth of manzanita, ceanothus, and low scrub 

 oak. These thickets are the favorite haunts of the bear, and are intersected in every direction 

 by their well-beaten paths. 



After crossing the divide and descending into the interior basin, from which Pit river issues 

 through its lower canon, grizzly bear " signs" became more rare, but were noticed on every 

 day's march till we reached Klamath lake. Here the country becomes more productive, the 

 mountain slopes being covered with bushes of service berry, gooseberry of several kinds, plum 

 and cherry trees, all loaded with fruit, upon which the numerous tracks proved many bears 

 were feeding. 



At San Francisco a large number of " grizzlies " are kept in confinement in different parts of 

 the city, and while there I frequently amused myself by watching them and studying their 

 habits. Two of these were quite large, and said to weigh, resjaectively, eight hundred and one 

 thousand pounds ; and they, with a cougar, an elk, a navajo, (four-horned sheep,) an ocelot, and 

 a bald eagle, went to make up a kind of menagerie, where I frequently spent an hour. 



These grizzlies were under perfect control, and were knocked about entirely without ceremony 

 by the showman, yet unresentingly, and he would even go so far as to ride upon their backs. 

 He used to give interest to each day's entertainment by getting up a wrestling match between 

 the bears, when they would tumble one another about with considerable spirit, yet usually very 

 goodnaturedly. The reward which more than any other stimulated them to effort was tobacco, 

 of which they seemed very fond. If undisturbed, however, they were very lethargic, lying the 

 whole day through, each rolled up into a huge ball of fur, nearly as high as the animal when 

 standing. 



A very beautiful bear, eighteen months old, and weighing nearly five hundred pounds, was 

 confined by a long chain near a slaughter house, in the environs of San Francisco, and just 

 beside the road I was every day compelled to travel. He had always been well fed, was very 

 fat, and, for a bear, very good natured. Every day some one of the butchers would have a 

 wrestling match with him, into the sport of which he would enter with great zest, yet never 

 ffvincing anything like ferocity ; indeed, to all mankind, he had been, so far, entirely harmless. 

 Not so, however, toward the pigs. For pork he seemed to have a special fondness, and he 

 exhausted all his bearish cunning to draw within the circle, of which his chain was the radius, 

 the vagrant shoats which ranged around the slaughter house. He would leave his food half 

 eaten or untasted, that it might attract the pigs, while he, retreating under the cart to which 

 he was chained, watched their motions with all the silent cunning of a cat. Woe to the unlucky 

 pig which, drawn by the bait, came within that magic circle ! he ceased to grow old from 

 that hour. 



Like most bears he was also very fond of sweets, of which a poor laborer, living in the vicinity, 

 had satisfactory, or rather unsatisfactory proof. Sometimes the bear would break his slender 

 chain, and range about the place at his own free will, doing no harm, but sometimes frightening 

 people, until he was caught and tied up again. One day, when the bear was at liberty, this 

 poor laborer was passing, just at evening, with his hard-earned pay converted into a sack of 

 sugar, which he carried on his shoulder to his family. He heard a step behind him, to which 

 he paid no attention till he felt violent hands laid on his sack of sugar. Turning round, what 

 was his consternation to find himself face to face with a large bear. Of course he was frighteaed , 



