280 The Wilderness Hunter. 



never have deemed it possible for any animal to make 

 such strides while in a trot. 



Nevertheless, the grisly is only occasionally, not nor- 

 mally, a formidable predatory beast, a killer of cattle and 

 of large game. Although capable of far swifter move- 

 ment than is promised by his frame of seemingly clumsy 

 strength, and in spite of his power of charging with 

 astonishing suddenness and speed, he yet lacks altogether 

 the supple agility of such finished destroyers as the cougar 

 and the wolf ; and for the absence of this agility no amount 

 of mere huge muscle can atone. He is more apt to feast 

 on animals which have met their death by accident, or 

 which have been killed by other beasts or by man, than 

 to do his own killing. He is a very foul feeder, with a 

 strong relish for carrion, and possesses a grewsome and 

 cannibal fondness for the flesh of his own kind ; a bear 

 carcass will toll a brother bear to the ambushed hunter 

 better than almost any other bait, unless it is the carcass 

 of a horse. 



Nor do these big bears always content themselves 

 merely with the carcasses of their brethren. A black bear 

 would have a poor chance if in the clutches of a large, 

 hungry grisly ; and an old male will kill and eat a cub, 

 especially if he finds it at a disadvantage. A rather re- 

 markable instance of this occurred in the Yellowstone 

 National Park, in the spring of 1891. The incident is 

 related in the following letter written to Mr. William 

 Hallett Phillips, of Washington, by another friend, Mr. 

 Elwood Hofer. Hofer is an old mountain-man ; I have 

 hunted with him myself, and know his statements to be 



