146 PRAIRIE AND FOBEST. 



BLACK BEAR. 



None of the ferte naturte are better known in a state of 

 captivity than the black bear. What village schoolboy,, 

 however remote the hamlet in which he resides, cannot 

 remember poor Bruin being led round by some half-washed, 

 uncombed foreigner, or his forming a portion of the attrac- 

 tions which drew the gaping crowd to enter the strong 

 smelling precincts of the annually visiting erratic 

 menagerie ? Alas ! hard is the poor bear's life when 

 he is thus a prisoner. In summer he is kept on half diet, 

 and shut up in a miserable den ; in winter he is stowed 

 away in a cellar, and possibly, at least once a week, baited 

 with curs, that the blackguard owner may raise enough 

 funds to carry on his vagrant life. How different this- 

 from the life the bear enjoyed in his native woods, wander- 

 ing about at pleasure, enjoying every luxury of nature that 

 the seasons produce; and, if in a country subject to a 

 severe winter, quietly sleeping through that portion of the 

 year when the winds, loaded with frost and snow, whistle 

 round his snug retreat ! The black bear at one period was 

 very widely distributed over the North American continent* 

 Its range now, on account of the advance and increase of 

 population, has been much restricted ; still, wherever there 

 arc large tracks of uncultivated ground, representatives of 

 this species will be found, whether in Canada or Labrador, 

 Florida, Georgia, or the Far West until you reach the 

 Rocky Mountains, beyond which I have never heard of the 

 black bear being seen, the cinnamon bear and the grizzly 

 bear there supplying his place. . So numerous still are the 



