BEAR KILLED WITH SMALL-SHOT. 21 



me. If I had missed him, or only slightly wounded him, he 

 would have been in the midst of ten or twelve poor coolies 

 who were huddled together within a few yards of me, in 

 great fear and trembling. This was a very large bear, and 

 unfortunately the skin was spoiled. I had pegged it out in 

 front of my tent ; and all night long I was kept awake by 

 the howling of jackals around my tent. In the morning I 

 found the skin had been almost entirely eaten by them." 



Colonel Smyth also favours me with a remarkable instance 

 of his having killed a full-grown Himalayan black bear with 

 small -shot. I give his own account of it. 



" Once, while out after pheasants, I met a bear, and had 

 just time to ram down a bullet, my only one, over the shot, 

 and take a snap-shot as the animal was disappearing. The 

 bear was wounded, but not badly; and I traced him down 

 the hill for a mile or so, very circumspectly as may be im- 

 agined, for I had only a shot-gun loaded with No. 6 shot. 

 After some time I lost all traces of him, and was about to re- 

 turn to my tent when I saw a kind of cave amongst the rocks. 

 On going up to it to reconnoitre, my friend Bruin came out 

 with a rush and a roar, when I fired my two barrels of shot 

 into his face, at a distance of five yards, which caused him to 

 drop back into the cave. I then bolted behind a rock to re- 

 load, and coming to the mouth of the cave I heard him in- 

 side ; but as he would not come out, I got a long stick, which 

 my guide, who was the only man with me, poked into the cave. 

 This brought him out again, and two more shots in the face 

 finished him. It proved to be a full-grown she-bear with cubs." 



I have killed and wounded many a bear, but can only re- 

 member one instance, and that rather a mild one, to record 

 of my having been regularly charged by a black Himalayan 

 Bruin. 



One evening I had discovered a she-bear and her half- 

 grown cub up an oak-tree growing just below the brow of a 

 steep hillside. But the old one had already detected me 



