ANIMALS OP NORTH AMERICA. 21 



" This bear is, in some respects, the most sagacious animal I 

 have ever met with. Before lying down, he goes several 

 hundred yards in the direction from which the wind comes, 

 then turns around and goes back some distance with the wind, 

 but at a short distance from the first track, after which he 

 makes his bed and lies down. Should an enemy now come 

 upon his track, he must approach him with the wind, and with 

 the bear's keen sense of smell he is certain of being made 

 aware of the approach before he is himself seen, and thus is 

 enabled to make his escape. 



" When pursued, the grizzly bear sometimes takes refuge 

 in a cave, and the hunters then endeavor, by making a dense 

 smoke at the entrance, to drive him out ; but instead, he fre- 

 quently, when the smoke becomes too oppressive, approaches 

 the fire, and with his fore paws beats upon it until it is extin- 

 guished, then returns into the back part of the cave." 



" An anecdote was related to me by a Delaware Indian, 

 which goes far to prove this curious animal one of the most 

 stupid in the brute creation. He says, that when the bear 

 enters a cave, it sometimes becomes necessary for the hunter 

 to take his rifle, and with a torch to guide him, follow Bruin in. 

 One would imagine this a very hazardous undertaking, and that 

 the bear would soon eject the intruder ; but on the contrary, he 

 sits upright upon his haunches, and with his forepaws covers 

 his face and eyes until the light is removed. In this way the 

 hunter is enabled to approach very close without danger, and 

 taking deadly aim with his trusty rifle, poor Bruin is no more. 



" As a set off, however, to this stupidity, an acquaintance 

 of mine, an old bear hunter from the frontier of Texas, 

 removed to California, and shortly after his arrival there, 

 went out to hunt a " Grizzly," and followed one of them into 

 a dense thicket, where he came upon him and gave him the 

 contents of his rifle. No sooner had he done this, however, 

 than the bear turned upon him, and in a few minutes literally 

 tore him in pieces." 



