202 FOREST LIFE IN ACADIE. 



the dry slopes of the woods and devoured. The settlei 

 say that the bear, while killing his victim (which mof 

 and bellows piteously all the while he is beating it to 

 death in the swamp), will every now and then retire 

 to the woods behind and listen for any approaching 

 signs of rescue, prior to returning and finishing his 

 work. This wicked appetite of his often leads to his 

 destruction ; for a search being entailed for the missing 

 beast, and the remains found, the avenger, on the follow- 

 ing evening, armed with a gun, goes out to waylay the 

 bear, who is sure to revisit the carcase. It would never 

 do to remain in ambush near the spot, for the villain 

 always comes back on the watch, planting his feet 

 as cautiously as an Indian creeping on moose, with all 

 his senses on the qui vive. So the man, finding by his 

 track in whigli direction he had retreated from the car- 

 case, goes back into the woods some quarter of a mile or 

 so, and then secretes himself; and Mooin, not suspecting 

 any ambuscade at this distance from the scene of his 

 recent feasting, comes along towards sundown, hand over 

 hand, and probably meets his just fate. Young moose, 

 too, often fall victims to the bear, though he would 

 never succeed in an attempt on the life of a full-grown 

 animal. 



The bear is conscious of being a villain, and will never 

 look a man in the face. This I have observed in the 

 case of tame animals, and marked the change of expres- 

 sion in their little treacherous black eye) about the size 

 of a small marble) just before they were about to do 

 something mischievous. In their quickness of temper, and 

 in the suddenness with which the usually perfectly dull 

 and unmeaning eye is lighted up with the most wicked 



