32 CARNIVORES. 



"bear-shooting is one of the most entertaining of sports. Some sportsmen have 

 spoken disparagingly of it, and I daresay sitting up half the night watching for a 

 bear's return to his cave, and killing him without adventure, may be poor 

 fun. . . . But bear-shooting conducted on proper principles, with two or three 

 bears afoot together, lacks neither excitement nor amusement. It is not very 

 dangerous sport, as the animal can be so easily seen, whilst he is not so active as a 

 tiger or a panther. Still he is very tough, and to anyone who would value him 

 for his demonstrations, he would appear sufficiently formidable. If a bear charges 

 he can generally be killed without more ado by a shot in the head when within 

 two paces. The belief that a bear rises on his hind-legs when near his adversary, 

 and thus offers a shot at the horseshoe mark on his chest, is groundless. I have shot 

 several bears within a few feet, and they were still coming on on all-fours. No 

 doubt when a bear reaches his man he rises to claw and bite him, but not before." 



Jerdon states that in the extreme south of India, among certain hill- 

 tribes known as Polygars, sloth-bears used to be hunted with large dogs, and 

 when brought to bay were attacked by the hunters with long poles smeared at the 

 end with bird-lime. The bird-lime caused the shaggy coat of the bears to become 

 fixed to the end of the pole, so that the animals soon became firmly held. A single 

 fragment of a bone of the fore-limb discovered in a cave in Madras proves that the 

 sloth-bear has been an inhabitant of India since a period when several kinds of 

 extinct mammals flourished there. And the extinct Theobald's bear from the 

 Siwalik Hills, mentioned on p. 26, serves to indicate that the sloth-bear is a 

 specially-modified form derived from bears belonging to the typical genus, since the 

 skull of that extinct species presents characters intermediate between those of 

 ordinary bears and that of the sloth-bear. 



THE PARTI-COLOURED BEAR. 

 Genus ^Eluropus. 



A large number of the mammals from the highlands of Tibet belong to types 

 quite unlike those found in any other part of the world ; and in no case is this 

 dissimilarity more marked than in the animal which may be termed the parti- 

 coloured bear (dEluropus melanoleucus). 



This strange animal, which has been known to European science only since 

 the year 1869, is of the approximate dimensions of a small brown bear, and has a 

 general bear-like aspect, although differing from all the other members of the 

 family in its parti-coloured coat. The fur is long and close, with a thick, woolly 

 under-fur. The general colour is white, but the eyes are surrounded with black 

 rings, the small ears are also black, while the shoulders are marked by a transverse 

 stripe of the same colour gradually increasing in width as it approaches the fore- 

 limbs, which are also entirely black, as are likewise the hind-limbs. This peculiar 

 coloration communicates a most extraordinary appearance to the creature ; and 

 without knowing more of its natural surroundings it is difficult to imagine the 

 object of such a staring contrast. The tail is extremely short ; and the soles of the 

 feet are hairy. 



