264 STATE OF SIEGE. 



was standing quite still in a thick brake at about twenty 

 paces distance. Her left side was towards me, and taking 

 aim behind her shoulder, I forthwith discharged one barrel, 

 on which she uttered a terrible growl, and wheeling about, 

 started off at full gallop up the side of a little hill hard by. 

 T now supposed that I was quit of her altogether, but she 

 quickly returned once more, with the like speed, to the tree 

 in which her young were perched. This she ascended for 

 a little distance, but presently came down again, and back- 

 wards, as is customary with those beasts. Subsequently 

 she posted herself at the root of the tree ; but I dared not 

 go nearer to her, neither did she venture to pay me any 

 farther visit. Thus, for a long time, we stood gazing at 

 each other. In the interim, in hopes of causing her to 

 move off, I sounded my Jagt-horn, or hunting-bugle, with 

 all my might, but without the desired effect ; and as she 

 would not stir from the spot, I was therefore at length 

 necessitated to beat a retreat, leaving her and her cubs in 

 possession of the field." 



"In the spring of 1832," so we are told by M. Falk, 

 " two young boys fell in with a she-bear, followed by her 

 cubs, near to the lake Knon in the parish of Eksharad, in 

 Wermeland. She drove the lads upon an udde, or pro- 

 montory, stretching a considerable distance into the lake, 

 and on to a large fragment of rock lying in the water beyond, 

 where she held them besieged, from seven in the morning 

 until noon ! All this time she kept pacing to and fro 

 at the extreme point of the headland, making the forest, at 

 intervals, resound with her roarings, which, indeed, were 

 heard more than a mile off; and it was not until twelve 

 o'clock that she retreated. When the boys were assured that 



