Old Ephraim 323 



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 conse- 

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

 forefathers, who so unhesitatingly attacked the early 

 Western travelers and explorers. Constant contact 

 with rifle-carrying hunters, for a period extending 

 over many generations of bear-life, has taught the 

 grisly, by bitter experience, that man is his un- 

 doubted overlord, as far as fighting goes; and this 

 knowledge has become a hereditary characteristic. 

 No grisly 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 ac- 

 customed to meet with, and the quantity of moles- 

 tation to which they are subjected. 



The change in the grisly' 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 regarded a man as simply an 

 erect variety of seal, quite as good eating as the 

 common kind. The records of these early explorers 

 are filled with examples of the ferocious and man- 

 eating propensities of the polar bears; but in the 



