CORRESPONDENCE 187 



now, too, had stealthily crept out of their secret 

 retreats to pursue their night's peregrinations, and 

 now and then all the while boxing another culprit. 

 In this fashion time, as it always does on such and 

 similar occasions, passed rapidly too rapidly, but 

 pleasantly away ; nay, flew unconsciously as it were, 

 so that the shades of night were now fast settling 

 down, but yet I thought not of home or giving up 

 the chase. I still could in some measure see the 

 objects of my solicitude and search as they passed 

 between the branches of the trees and betwixt me 

 and the sky, or dropped from the luxuriant foliage 

 overhead, or darted like an arrow or shadow by, 

 or lightly fanned the tops of the long and waving 

 grasses and graceful ferns all pursuing their little 

 joys." After taking a number of good specimens, 

 Edward was proceeding happily and carelessly along, 

 thinking to himself how fortunate he had been, 

 and whistling some of his favourite old Scotch 

 melodies, when he was suddenly brought to a stand- 

 still. Something very large and extraordinarily long 

 appeared before him in his path, moving along 

 towards him. "Well," he writes, "if every limb 

 did not shake like an aspen leaf, and every bone 

 in me did not crack and quake with downright 

 fear, as I beheld the hideous-looking beast. The 

 whistling, as you may easily guess, instantly ceased, 

 and, coming to a standstill, I could not help wonder- 

 ing, as I beheld the moving mass drawing slowly, it 

 is true, yet steadily, towards me, what in the world 

 the creature could possibly be ; what grizzly appari- 



