HIBERNATION. 261 



examined the mud at the bottom, where I at length dis- 

 cerned his footsteps, I also might have come to the conclu- 

 sion that he was still in the water. 



That death should overtake a wounded bear, when he thus 

 plunges into a lake or river, and is making for the opposite 

 shore, and that he should afterwards sink to the bottom, is 

 very possible; and it is certainly within the bounds of 

 credence, though not of probability, that when decomposition 

 subsequently takes place, the carcase may be so entangled 

 amongst roots, &c., at the bottom, that it cannot rise again 

 to the surface ; but farther than this my credulity certainly 

 does not extend. 



When naturalists and others indulge in idle fancies, the 

 common people, to my knowledge, often take pleasure in 

 gulling them. I doubt not, indeed, that the story palmed 

 on M. Vergeland, as to the skulls of the bears being found 

 attached by the fangs to a log at the bottom of a lake, was 

 a pure and gratuitous invention. 



Bears in a state of nature hibernate, as is known ; and so 

 will bears when in confinement, if left entirely to themselves. 

 To this fact I can personally testify. 



Observing at the setting in of the winter, that two young 

 bears in my possession were losing their appetite, and 

 evincing symptoms of drowsiness, I caused the door of the 

 building in which they were confined to be nailed up, and 

 boards to be affixed to the bars in front, so that they might 

 remain in comparative darkness, and thus left them alto- 

 gether to themselves. Two or three days afterwards I peeped 

 through a crevice, and found them in a most comfortable 

 nap, in which state they continued for many weeks. During 

 the whole of that time they, to my certain knowledge, eat 



