BEAR HUNTING. 281 



both for the convenience of carrying it on horseback, and from 

 a conviction of its greater tleadliness, the short, large-bored 

 yager, or the heavy double-shot gun, with buck-shot or car- 

 tridge. 



In the former State, Bear-hunting is pursued both for sport 

 and profit by the r<iugh hardy woodsme , who form the greater 

 portion of its rural population ; in the latter, by the wealthy 

 and cultivated planters, who dwell on their own fine estates, 

 and I'esort to this wild and sometimes dangerous pursuit, merely 

 as a frolic. 



In both States, the same rules of hunting are observed, — the 

 hunters camp out for the night, in whatever suitable position 

 they can find, near to the haunts of the Bear. These haunts 

 are easily known by the habit of this animal during the summei" 

 months, from July to September, of tearing the bark of the 

 trees in the vicinity of his favorite resorts, with tooth and claw, 

 RR liigh up as he can reach, in the same manner as the Stag 

 frays them with his antlers, or the Bull and Bison toss the earth 

 with hoof and horn, in their corresponding seasons. 



By a careful observation of these marks, old and experienced 

 hunters will speedily tell you how many Bears are to be found 

 in any given neighborhood, and will pronounce, with what ap- 

 proximates wondrously to certainty, on the size, sex and weight 

 of each individual. In Louisiana, the Bears do not hibernate ; 

 but the female, during the first month or two after producing 

 cubs, which she does ordinarily but once in two years, and then 

 two or three at a birth, conceals herself with the cubs in the 

 hollow of a decayed tree, until they are able to follow her, 

 leaving her den neither for food nor for water, but subsisting, 

 as before described, on her own internal fat and juices — which 

 is the more astonishing, when we consider that, during this pe- 

 riod, she self-supported, supports also, from the same internal 

 storehouse, her voracious family. 



The Bears make their beds in the thickest canebrakes in the 

 vicinity of their watering-places, to which they have their regu- 

 lar paths, which they never change, so long as they bed in the 



