264 THE MINDS AND MANNERS 



Usually, unless fired at, these big brown bears flee from 

 man at sight of him, and by many experienced Alaskan bear 

 hunters who can shoot they are not regarded as particularly 

 dangerous, save when they are attacked by man, or think that 

 they are to be attacked. 



They are just now the boldest of all bears, and the most 

 dangerous. 



They often attack men who are hunting them, and have 

 killed several. 



They have attacked a few persons who were not hunting. 



Where they are really numerous they are a menace and a 

 nuisance to frontiersmen who need to traverse their haunts. 



In all places where Alaskan brown bears are quite too 

 numerous for public safety, their numbers should thoroughly 

 be reduced; and everywhere the bears of Alaska should be 

 pursued and shot until the survivors acquire the wholesome 

 respect for man that now is felt everywhere by the polar and 

 the grizzly. Then the Alaskans will have peace, and our 

 Alaskan enemies possibly will cease to try to discredit our 

 intelligence. 



The most impressive exhibition of wild-animal fear that 

 Americans ever have seen was furnished by the African motion 

 pictures of Paul J. Rainey. They were taken from a blind 

 constructed within close range of a dry river bed in northern 

 British East Africa, where a supply of water was held, by a 

 stratum of waterproof clay or rock, about four feet below the 

 surface of the dry river bed. By industrious pawing the 

 zebras had dug a hole down to the water, and to this one life- 

 saving well wild animals of many species flocked from miles 

 around. The camera faithfully recorded the doings of ele- 

 phants, giraffes, zebras, hartebeests, gnus, antelopes of several 

 species, wart-hogs and baboons. 



The personnel of the daily assemblage was fairly astounding, 

 and to a certain extent the observer of those wonderful pictures 

 can from them read many of the thoughts of the animals. 



