290 FRANK FORESTER S FIELD SPORTS. 



reacliinrr the animal's heart. "With these fearful odds against 

 the hunter, the Bear approaches the candle, growing every 

 moment moi'e sensible of some uncommon intrusion ; he reaches 

 the blaze, and either raises his paw to strike it, or lifts his nose 

 to scent it, either of which will extinguish it, and leave the 

 hunter and the Bear in total darkness. This dreadful moment 

 is taken advantage of — the loud report of the rifle fills the cave 

 with stunning noise, and as the light disappears, the ball, if suc- 

 cessfully fired, penetrates the eye of the huge animal, the only 

 place where it would find a passage to the brain ; and this not 

 only gives the death-wound, but instantly paralyzes, that no 

 temporary resistance may be made. On such chances, the 

 American hunter perils his life, and often thoughtlessly courts 

 the danger. T. b. t." 



With this brilliant sketch, I close my observations on the 

 Bear in particular, and on Western hunting in general. I 

 have written on this part of my subject wiih less confidence and 

 more fear of erring, — in that with Western sports I have no 

 practical acquaintance ; and that I have in consequence been 

 obliged to depend for my facts on what I have learned from 

 conversation or correspondence with others, or from the pub- 

 lished works of those who have seen the animals in their natu- 

 ral state, and whose opinions, founded on the notice and expe- 

 rience of years, are doubtless more correct than any I could 

 have arrived at in the course of a transient tour through the re- 

 gions of Elk and Bison — on the strength of the briefest of 

 which every travelled cockney deems himself fully justified in 

 discoursing learnedly anent all the wild sports of the West. 



I mention this, in order to deprecate any severity of censure 

 on this portion of my work, should errors occur, though I trust 

 there are none so flagrant as to merit such. With many of the 

 animals, in a state of domestication, I am familiar, as I am with 

 the weapons used in their destruction ; and I intimately know 

 men who have killed all the animals I have recorded here, ex- 

 cept, perhaps, the Antelope, the Rocky Mountain Goat, the 



