THE BLACK. BEAR. 249 



so scarce that it requires not only a good pack of Bear-dogs, 

 but the very best start-dogs, to enable the Bear-hunter to be 

 successful. 



Forty-nine years have passed since I went on my first 

 camp-hunt, in search of Bear, as a protege under the most 

 successful Bear-hunter in the Alleghany Mountains. 

 Though no Bears were killed, and I saw no Bears, yet I 

 acquired a vast fund of knowledge of the habits of the 

 Bear, which subsequently proved of great advantage to 

 me while hunting in the Far West. 



To give the reader a correct insight into the mysteries of 

 the Bear-chase, the habits, and modes of pursuing the Bear, 

 I will relate what I learned from this noted hunter. 



My room-mate at Washington College, Virginia, was a 

 son of this old hunter. By special request of my father, I 

 was granted a week's furlough to go on this hunt. Our 

 camp was pitched in a part of the mountains bordering on 

 the Cheat River, a locality famous for its many Bears and 

 Panthers. A good, dry place was found under a large, 

 shelving rock, and close at hand flowed a clear, rippling 

 brook, fringed with ivy and laurel-bushes. 



After we had eaten our supper, I begged the old hunter 

 to tell us some of his escapes from the she-Bears whose 

 cubs he had taken while the mothers were absent, but 

 which had returned in time to pursue him. 



"Boys," said he, "it were best I should tell you how to 

 still-hunt, and instruct you as to what you should do pro- 

 vided we find a Bear to-morrow. Probably we shall go by 

 a cave where I robbed a she-Bear of her CUDS, and got this 

 scar, that I shall carry to my grave, in a hand-to-hand 

 fight with her. 



' ' Bears are exceedingly fond o all kinds of fruits and 

 nuts, especially grapes and chestnuts. As soon as the 

 spring opens, the female takes out her cubs and goes feed- 

 ing with them early in the morning. After she has got her 

 breakfast, she either goes back to the place where she 

 brought forth her young, or to some thicket, there to lie 

 until late in the evening. The best time to hunt them 



