404 BEAR-SHOOTING IN TRANSYLVANIA. 



posted, while the beaters had to wait on the path where the 

 sportsmen had been stationed in the previous drive, until a 

 given time had elapsed. 



Thinking that Count T. might have wounded the bear I 

 gave orders that my Transylvanian hounds were to be let 

 loose at the beginning of the beat, and a merry hunt soon 

 began in all directions, for the dogs separated after foxes, 

 numbers of which came out by the line of guns; while the 

 beaters and the keepers, imagining that the wounded beast 

 was in front " of them, set up a tremendous yelling, which, 

 together with the blasts of the horns, formed a wild concert. 



The drive must have been more than half over when some 

 shouts, which rose above the general din, undoubtedly indi- 

 cated that a bear was near. Immediately afterwards I heard 

 the movements of a heavy animal, but at the same time 

 plainly perceived that it was making towards my brother-in- 

 law, who was posted fifty yards from me at the most, there 

 being only a little ridge between us. In a few moments 

 there came a shot, after which I heard nothing but a few 

 heavy bounds. A minute went by, during which my atten- 

 tion was strained to the utmost ; then two shots sounded in 

 quick succession from some of the posts lower down the line, 

 and the beaters soon raised a diabolical noise. 



When the beat was over I found that the large black bear 

 which Count T. had shot at had not been encountered, so it 

 must have crossed over the ridge to the adjoining forest 

 before we had got to our places. A smaller lighter- coloured 

 animal had, however, come to Count T. in the middle of the 

 beat, who drove it back, in order that one of the other guns 

 might get a shot at him ; the same thing had also been done 

 by Herr v. P. and the painter M. 



Master " Petz," who had thus been repeatedly baulked, 

 now broke back to the beaters, who successfully turned him; 

 then it was that he had come very much out of breath, and 



