BLACK SWAMP 67 



was moving among the inert shapes of root 

 and trunk. A massive fur-clad beast, dull 

 black in colour, with high, humped haunches 

 and heavy, shapeless limbs, its hind feet 

 grotesquely semi-human in outline, its head 

 swinging low on a long, clumsy neck, came 

 picking its way with a loose- jointed gait over 

 the jumble of roots. With little, twinkling, 

 deep-set eyes it peered beneath each root, 

 investigated each crevice in the ancient bark, 

 looking for grubs and beetles, which its great 

 paws captured with amazing though awkward- 

 looking dexterity. For so huge a beast as the 

 great black bear, which could pull down an 

 ox, to busy himself in the hunting of grubs 

 and beetles, seemed one of the whimsicalities 

 of Nature, who pursues her ends indifferently 

 through mammoth or microbe. 



Near the tree of the hornets the bear found 

 a half-rotten stump. Sniffing at it with 

 instructed nose, he decided that it held grubs. 

 Clutching at it with his long, hooked claws, he 

 tore away one side of it, revealing a mellow- 

 brown, crumbly interior channelled by wood- 

 grubs in every direction. Those which were 

 in view on the erect portion of the stump he 

 first picked out delicately and devoured with 

 satisfaction. Then he turned his attention 

 to the big slab which he had ripped away, and 



