THE DEATH SHOT. 805 



but mucli harsher. He kept his ground witn- 

 out attempting to molest them, and they, on 

 their part, after attentively regarding him for 

 some time, generally wheeled round and galloped 

 off, though, from their disposition, there is little 

 doubt but he would have been torn in pieces 

 had he lost his presence of mind and attempted 

 to fly. "When he discovered them from a dis- 

 tance, he generally frightened them away by 

 beating on a large tin box, in which he carried 

 his specimens of plants. He never saw more 

 than four together, and two of these he supposes 

 to have been cubs; he more often met them 

 singly or in pairs. He was only once attacked, 

 and then by a female, for the purpose of allow- 

 ing her cubs time to escape. His gun on this 

 occasion missed fire, but he kept her at bay with 

 the stock of it, until some gentlemen of the 

 Hudson's Bay Company, with whom he was 

 travelling at the time, came up and drove her 

 off. In the latter end of June, 1826, he ob- 

 served a male caressing a female, and soon after- 

 wards they both came towards him, but whether 

 accidentally, or for the purpose of attacking him, 

 he was uncertain. He ascended a tree, and as 

 the female drew near, fired at and mortally 

 wounded her. She uttered a few loud screams, 

 which threw the male into a furious rage, and 

 he reared up against the trunk of the tree in 

 26* 



