Bears and Wolves. 67 



contentedly to itself, and so loudly that sportsmen are 

 frequently guided from a distance to the purring spinning- 

 wheel sound ^ which betrays it 



There is something very touching, so I think, in the story 

 of the men who, following up a wounded bear, found the 

 beast behind an ice-boulder trying to staunch the flowing 

 blood with snow. I like too to think of the other which dis- 

 covered an empty whaUng boat and got in, and — the moor- 

 ings giving way under its somewhat violent boarding — went 

 off on a cruise on its own account, and was seen by the 

 unfortunate owners of the boat sitting up in the stem with 

 every appearance of the most complete satisfaction. 



Folk-lore, as a rule, is just, and folk-lore is always kind 

 to the bear. There are no fairy-tales or legends in which 

 the bear is a villain. He is a blundering fool in several 

 fables, but he is never unamiable. 



Writing many years ago on the " Fairies of Dardistan," 

 I put into a hunter's mouth the following fragment of local 

 folk-lore : — 



" I mj^K have never seen either Fairies or Demons, but I am a 

 familiar of the Bears. It is not generally known, perhaps, bat bears 

 are the ofispring of a man who, unable to pay his debts, went off to the 

 woods and never came back again, for he married some wild forest 

 thing and lived amongst the fir-trees to the end of his days. And his 

 descendants undeistand our language, fall in love with human beings, 



^ Cuvier's bear " was particularly fond of sacking iis paws, during 

 which operation it always sent forth a uniform and constant murmur, 

 something like the sound of a spinning- wheeL" 



" The sucking of the paw, accompanied by a drumming noise when 

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

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

 down in caverns and fissures of rocks." The cause of this has often 

 been speculated on, but Tickell imagines that it is merely a habit 

 peculiar to it, and he states "that they are just as fond of sucking 

 their neighbours' paws or the hands of any person as their own 

 paws" (Jerdon). 



