BIG GAME OF NORTH AMERICA 37! 
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 
'  galmon run, he saw seventeen black bearsat one wup d’ail, 
: feeding along the bank of one of the northern rivers of British 
Columbia. 
4 _ But it must not be inferred from these facts that every 
_ tenderfoot who comes along will run up against bears the first 
e ___ 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 
. eS 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 
BB2 
