FUR ANIMALS. 443 



This fabulously gifted creature receives its technical name 

 from its supposed gluttonous qualities ; and while it is true 

 that its appetite is worthy of a gourmand, it is by no means 

 so great as some persons have asserted. 



The statements of old naturalists that it generally ate so 

 much that its abdomen became swollen to such an extent 

 that it passed between two trees, close together, to reduce 

 its dimensions into something like decent proportions, is 

 on a par with their assertions that it killed a deer by climb- 

 ing a tree and dropping a piece of rao3s before it, and when 

 the latter stopped to eat the tempting morsel, pounced 

 quickly on its back and destroyed it in a moment ; or those 

 uttered by old trappers that no bullets could kill it, as it 

 spat them out the moment they entered the body, and that 

 no man could approach it unless he had the medicine bag of 

 a great Indian chief about his person. The tales told about 

 its courage, cunning, daring, and nonchalance are indeed 

 numerous in the North-west; but it is hardly necessary to 

 state that while some of them are founded on a substratum 

 of fact, the greater number have no stronger basis than the 

 imagination of superstitious and often ignoraut trappers, 

 and their congeners, the half-breeds and Indians. 



The animal whose fabulous characteristics have made it 

 so famous looks like a small and clumsy bear-cub, though 

 its gait is not so plantigrade as that of Bruin. It has 

 strength without activity, courage without caution, and en- 

 ergy without apparent motive; but it has so many other 

 excellent qualities that these seem to be only the negative 

 sides. It is certainly ungainly in appearance: the body 

 being thick and rather long ; the legs thick and short; the 

 back arched, and higher than the head or rump ; the eyes 

 very small and wide apart ; the ears low ; the head broad, 

 with a short, pointed muzzle ; and the tail being drooping, 

 of medium length, and very bushy. The feet are large for 

 its size, and unusually furry, but the balls of the digits are 

 naked. In color it is a dusky brown, with a perceptible 

 band of yellowish-brown along the sides. The under parts, 

 tail, and legs are blackish ; and the claws are white, curved, 



