YELLOW BEARS. 133 



somewhat between a hiss and a whistle, they all 

 made a sudden rush, and we had only time for a 

 couple of snap shots each as they bounded up the 

 slope at speed : one, a young male, rolled over 

 paralysed, with his spine broken ; and a female, 

 which went off Avith the rest, was observed to lag 

 behind, and then lie down. Having reloaded, we 

 crept towards her as noiselessly as possible, but on 

 our approach, she regained her legs, and would 

 most likely have got away had not Fred again 

 fired, and dropped her with a bullet through the 

 neck. Having gralloched the game, we were 

 returning to camp, when we saw a couple of large 

 yellow bears bowling along a piece of rugged 

 ground a couple of hundred yards below us. As 

 they were coming up-hill in our direction, we got 

 behind a clump of rhododendron bushes, which 

 afforded excellent cover, and awaited their ap- 

 proach. They travelled slowly, being engaged in 

 turning over stones as they went along to look for 

 insects, which search could not have proved very 

 satisfactory, for they came up grunting and moan- 

 ing, as if in very bad humour with each other, 



