The Black Bea7\ 259 



olds, or lean and poor bears. During the course of his 

 life he has himself killed, or been in at the death of, five 

 hundred bears, at least two thirds of them falling by his 

 own hand. In the years just before the war he had on 

 one occasion, in Mississippi, killed sixty-eight bears in five 

 months. Once he killed four bears in a day ; at another 

 time three, and frequently two. The two largest bears 

 he himself killed weighed, respectively, 408 and 410 

 pounds. They were both shot in Mississippi, But he 

 saw at least one bear killed which was much larger than 

 either of these. These figures were taken down at the 

 time, when the animals were actually weighed on the 

 scales. Most of his hunting for bear was done in north- 

 ern Mississippi, where one of his plantations was situated, 

 near Greenville. During the half century that he hunted, 

 on and off, in this neighborhood, he knew of two instances 

 where hunters were fatally wounded in the chase of the 

 black bear. Both of the men were inexperienced, one 

 being a raftsman who came down the river, and the other 

 a man from Vicksburg-. He was not able to learn the 

 particulars in the last case, but the raftsman came too 

 close to a bear that was at bay, and it broke through the 

 dogs, rushed at and overthrew him, then lying on him, it 

 bit him deeply in the thigh, through the femoral artery, 

 so that he speedily bled to death. 



But a black bear is not usually a formidable opponent, 

 and though he will sometimes charge home he is much 

 more apt to bluster and bully than actually to come to 

 close quarters. I myself have but once seen a man who 

 had been hurt by one of these bears. This was an Indian. 



