BIG GAME OF NORTH AMERICA 371 



Here on Vancouver .Island and on the north-west coast of 

 British Columbia black bears are especially plentiful, one of 

 our great fur-dealers (Mr. Boscowitz) having taken in over 

 1,000 hides last year, whilst I see by a newspaper (' Colonist,' 

 Dec. 6, 1892) that at Sumas in the New Westminster District 

 (one of our best farming districts) seven bears have lately fallen 

 to one rifle and three to another ; and I am well convinced 

 that a salmon -canning friend of mine told me the truth when 

 he asserted that about dawn, one day during the great annual 

 salmon run, he saw seventeen black bears at one coup d'oeit, 

 feeding along the bank of one of the northern rivers of British 

 Columbia. 



But it must not be inferred from these facts that every 

 tenderfoot who comes along will run up against bears the first 

 time he goes in search of them. On the contrary, an old friend 

 of mine (every inch an English sportsman) has been out in this 

 country for twenty-five years, travelling from time to time all 

 over the province, and has never yet seen a bear alive in the 

 woods. The reason is simply that my friend uses a shot-gun, 

 and doesn't look for bears ; and if you want to see these beasts 

 you must look for them at the right time and in the right place, 

 and even then be thankful if you see more than their fresh tracks, 

 for Nature has given them noses as keen as the nose of a caribou, 

 and ears which are always on the alert, as well as an impreg- 

 nable sanctuary in the dense timber and tangled woodfall of 

 their native forests. To those who live upon the Pacific coast 

 the black bear is an animal to be thankful for, affording as he 

 does an excuse for carrying a rifle when spring is in the woods ; 

 when the cedar swamps smell heavy with the musk of the 

 skunk cabbage, and are lit in their green darkness by stray beams 

 of May sunshine ; when Cormus Nuttalli is white with blooms 

 as big as the palm of a man's hand, and underfoot all is bright 

 with the red and orange of columbine and ' Indian pink,' or 

 white with the delicate petals of the dog violet. To me the black 

 glossy hide beneath my feet always brings back memories of 

 spring-time, either here on the island, or on the mainland by 



