404 BEAR-SHOOTING IN TRANSYLVANIA. 
posted, while the beaters had to wait on the path where the 
sportsmen had been stationed in the previous drive, until a 
given time had elapsed. 
Thinking that Count T. might have wounded the bear I 
gave orders that my Transylvanian hounds were to be let 
loose at the beginning of the beat, and a merry hunt soon 
began in all directions, for the dogs separated after foxes, 
numbers of which came out by the line of guns; while the 
beaters and the keepers, imagining that the wounded beast 
was in front of them, set up a tremendous yelling, which, 
together with the blasts of the horns, formed a wild concert. 
The drive must have been more than half over when some 
shouts, which rose above the general din, undoubtedly indi- 
cated that a bear was near. Immediately afterwards I heard 
the movements of a heavy animal, but at the same time 
plainly perceived that it was making towards my brother-in- 
law, who was posted fifty yards from me at the most, there 
being only a little ridge between us. In a few moments 
there came a shot, after which I heard nothing but a few 
heavy bounds. A minute went by, during which my atten- 
tion was strained to the utmost; then two shots sounded in 
quick succession from some of the posts lower down the line, 
and the beaters soon raised a diabolical noise. 
When the beat was over I found that the large black bear 
which Count T. had shot at had not been encountered, so it 
must have crossed over the ridge to the adjoining forest 
before we had got to our places. A smaller lighter-coloured 
animal had, however, come to Count T. in the middle of the 
beat, who drove it back, in order that one of the other guns 
might get a shot at him; the same thing had also been done 
by Herr v. P. and the painter M. 
Master “ Petz,’ who had thus been repeatedly baulked, 
now broke back to the beaters, who successfully turned him; 
then it was that he had come very much out of breath, and 
