Old Rphraim. 299 



half an ounce to an ounce. With the old pea-rifles the 

 shot had to be in the eye or heart ; and accidents to the 

 hunter were very common. But the introduction of 

 heavy breech-loading repeaters has greatly lessened the 

 danger, even in the very few and far-off places where 

 the grizzlies are as ferocious as formerly. For nowadays 

 these great bears are undoubtedly much better aware of 

 the death-dealing power of men, and, as a consequence, 

 much less fierce, than was the case with their forefathers, 

 who so unhesitatingly attacked the early Western trav- 

 ellers and explorers. Constant contact with rifle-carrying 

 hunters, for a period extending over many generations of 

 bear-life, has taught the grizzly by bitter experience that 

 man is his undoubted overlord, as far as fighting goes ; 

 and this knowledge has become an hereditary character- 

 istic. No grizzly will assail a man now unprovoked, and 

 one will almost always rather run than fight ; though 

 if he is wounded or thinks himself cornered he will attack 

 his foes with a headlong, reckless fury that renders him 

 one of the most dangerous of wild beasts. The ferocity 

 of all wild animals depends largely upon the amount of 

 resistance they are accustomed to meet with, and the 

 quantity of molestation to which they are subjected. 



The change in the grizzly's character during the last 

 half century has been precisely paralleled by the change 

 in the characters of his northern cousin, the polar bear, 

 and of the South African lion. When the Dutch and 

 Scandinavian sailors first penetrated the Arctic seas, they 

 were kept in constant dread of the white bear, who re- 

 garded a man as simply an erect variety of seal, quite 



