98 MY FIRST BEAR. 



South, but it will be seen that at times the Southern brutes 

 are savage enough to satisfy any one. Jerdon, in his 

 Mammals of India, quoting from Tickell says, " The power 

 of suction in the bear, as well as of propelling wind from its 

 mouth is very great. It is by these means enabled to pro- 

 cure with ease, its common food of white ants and larvae ; 

 on arriving at an ant hill, the bear scrapes away with the fore 

 feet until he reaches the large combs at the bottom of the 

 galleries. It then with violent puffs dissipates the dust and 

 crumbled particles of the nest and sucks out the inhabitants of 

 the comb by such forcible inhalations as to be heard at two 

 hundred yards distance or more. Large larvae are in this 

 way sucked out from great depths under the soil. . . . 

 " In running the bear moves in a rough canter shaking up 

 and down but gets over very bad ground with great speed, 

 regardless of tumbles down the rough places. The sucking 

 of the paw accompanied by a drumming noise when at rest 

 is common to all bears, especially after meals, and during 

 the heat of the day they may often be heard puffing and 

 humming far down in the caverns or fissures of rocks." 



The first bear I killed was in our trip in the Dandilly 

 Forest. He had taken up his abode for the day in the 

 middle of a bamboo clump, the centre stems of which had 

 been cut out by the natives, leaving the outer ones standing, 

 affording a nice shady sort of summer house, and in this the 

 bear was fast asleep. Our shikaries brought us up to the 

 opposite side of the entrance without awaking him ; we soon 

 did so, however, by opening a fusilade. He did not attempt 

 to bolt, only tried hard to get at us through the bamboos 

 but in a very short time he was "hors de combat"; it was 

 very like shooting a bear in a cage, but we were young at 



