46 ANECDOTES OF ANIMALS. 



head. A man who wantonly threw an axe at a male 

 bear as he passed, wounded him ; whereupon the beast 

 rushed at him ; the man fell backwards over a fallen 

 tree, and in so doing tore off a sharp-pointed knob of 

 wood, which he thrust down the bear's throat, and so 

 killed him ; not, however, before he had received his 

 own death-wound from the hind-foot. He walked home 

 holding in his intestines, and died a day or two after. 1 



An old hunter, named Ruhe, having set his traps to 

 catch beavers, returned to the stream to ascertain his 

 success. He missed one of them, and, on looking for it, 

 saw signs of a bear having passed that way. As he 

 went on, he heard the noise of a heavy body breaking 

 through the bushes in the thicket. He hid himself be- 

 hind a rock, and saw a huge bear limping on three legs 

 to a flat piece of rock, upon which it seated itself ; and 

 on raising one of its fore-paws, Ruhe discovered that it 

 was encircled by the lost trap. The bear lifted the 

 iron glove towards his face, examined it, turned his paw 

 round and round, bent his head from side to side, looked 

 at the trap askance with the most puzzled air, felt the 

 encumbrance, tapped it on the rock, and evidently knew 

 not what to do. Then he began to feel pain and licked 

 it ; but Ruhe soon put an end to all his conjectures, by 

 shooting him dead. 2 



Of all the bears, the Grizzly (Ursus firox) is said to 

 be the most formidable, both for size and ferocity ; and 

 Mr. Ruxton tells the following anecdote, in which one of 

 them makes a conspicuous figure : A trapper, named 

 Glass, and a companion, were setting their beaver traps 

 in a stream to the north of the river Platte, when they 

 saw a large grizzly bear turning up the turf near by, 

 > L'Acadie. 2 Kuxton. 



