120 TRUE BEAR STORIES. 



queer creatures are overrunning the region 

 down there, too, growing like weeds, in 

 creasing as man decreases. I found a sort 

 of marsh bear here. He looks like the 

 sloth bear (Ursus Labiatus) of the Ganges, 

 India, as you see him in the Zoo of Lon 

 don, only he is not a sloth, by any means. 

 The negroes are superstitiously afraid of 

 him, and their dogs, very numerous, and 

 good coon dogs, too, will not touch him. 

 His feet are large and flat, to accommo 

 date him in getting over the soft ground, 

 ifhile his shaggy and misshapen body is 

 Tery thin and light. His color is as un 

 lovely as his shape a sort of faded, dirty 

 brown or pale blue, with a rim of dirty 

 white about the eyes that makes him look 

 as if he wore spectacles when he stops and 

 looks at you. 



As he is not fit to eat because he lives 

 on fish and oysters, sportsmen will not fire 

 at him; and as the poor, superstitious, voo 

 doo-worshiping negroes, and their dogs, 

 too, run away as soon as he is seen, he has 



