BEARS I HAVE MET 261 



mounted guns. Nowadays every Tom, Dick and 

 Harry is armed with a lead pumping machine 

 which pours a succession of soft nosed bullets into 

 the devoted carcass of any luckless wild creature 

 that is unfortunate enough to cross the path of the 

 butchers. 



The terrible execution of these modern fire- 

 arms in the hands of good shots is apparent when- 

 ever one of the real hunters brings in his trophies. 

 Not long ago old Joe of Arizona drove into 

 Globe with five grizzly bearskins and the pelts of 

 fourteen black bear which were the results accom- 

 plished by Joe and his two sons in a two-day hunt 

 in Gila County. 



When two men can make such a score we can 

 understand that the wild animals we know, may 

 well be a very timid set of creatures compared to 

 the ones which inhabited the forest-covered conti- 

 nent to which the Pilgrims emigrated. But the 

 black bear has grown wise, and the fact that it still 

 may be found almost anywhere in the United 

 States, sufficiently proves that it has kept up with 

 the times and developed an ability to accommodate 

 itself to changed conditions of environment. 



The locomotive of an Erie Railroad train killed 

 a black bear last year, within a hundred and sev- 

 enteen miles of the New York City postoffice, and 

 I saw bear tracks this (1907) summer near my 

 log house, where I am now writing, a day and a 

 half drive from New York. Notwithstanding the 

 advent of modern guns and a price on his 



