BEARS. 353 



to trap them, as they are then most voracious. The 

 "deadfall" is a little camp over the entrance of which 

 a heavily-weighted log is adjusted, so that when Bruin 

 touches the bait it comes down on the small of his back. 

 A couple of good woodsmen will make and set half-a- 

 dozen deadfalls in the course of a day. They are baited 

 with mutton, beef, pork, fish, partridge anything, in fact, 

 as long as it is pretty high and smelly. Steel traps are 

 preferred by the trapper to deadfalls, for the cruel reason 

 that the latter kill the bear almost immediately, and con- 

 sequently in warm weather require constant attendance, 

 whereas the poor bear caught by the paw in a steel trap 

 lives for seven or eight days. The steel trap must not be 

 chained to a standing tree or other stationary object, as 

 the bear in his first struggles will smash anything that 

 resists him, but when it is chained to a log he drags it 

 after him for a short distance, and then gets tired out. 

 Rope snares made fast to strong spring poles are also used 

 with success on their paths and roads. I knew a trapper 

 on the Upsalquitch who killed thirty-two bears one spring, 

 and he told me he lost twenty more out of his traps. How 

 that may be I cannot say, but I saw the thirty-two skins ; 

 the largest measured 7 feet 8 inches from snout to tail. 

 In the spring bears tap the sugar maple with their claws, 

 and lick up the sweet sap which flows freely from a wound 

 in the bark of the tree. They also peel the spruce trees, 

 and eat with relish the tender inner bark. 



The sportsman, when hunting cariboo in the first snow, 

 sometimes comes across a bear's tracks, and follows them 

 to the den, when Bruin falls an easy victim, as he comes 

 out to see what is up. Sometimes, too, when the snow is 



2 A 



