OAVE LODGERS. 197 



the skin tliey are very difficult of extraction, and a 

 portion, breaking off in the wound, will traverse under 

 the surface, reappearing at some very distant point. 



Having determined on his winter's residence, and 

 cleaned it out before the commencement of winter (the 

 extra leaves and rubbish scraped out around the entrance 

 being a sure sign to the hunter that the den will afford 

 him one skin at least, when the winter s snow shall have 

 well covered the ground), Mooin, finding it very difficult 

 to procure a further supply of food, and being, moreover, 

 in a very sleepy frame of mind and body — fat as a prize 

 pig from recent excessive gorging on the numerous berries 

 of the barren, or mast under the beech woods — turns in 

 for the winter ; if he has a partner, so much the better 

 and the warmer. He lies with his fore-arms curled 

 around his head and nose, which is poked in under- 

 neath the chest. Here he will sleep uninterruptedly 

 till the warm suns late in March influence his som- 

 niferous feelings, unless his sweet mid-winter repose 

 be cut short by a sharp poke in the ribs with a pole, 

 when he has nothing for it but to collect his almost 

 lost power of reflection, and crawl out of his den — 

 saluted, as he appears, by a heavy crushing blow over 

 the temples with the back of an axe, and a volley of 

 musket balls into his body as he reels forward, which 

 translates him into a longer and far different state of 

 sleep. 



There has been great uncertainty as to what time the 

 female brings forth her young ; some say that it is not 

 until she leaves her winter quarters in the early spring, 

 and that though the she -bear has been started from her 

 den in winter, and two little shapeless things found left 



