

THE FORESTS AND SPORT OF SIBERIA. 165 



success. From man he usually runs away, but sometimes he will 

 attack him without further ado, not hesitating even at superior 

 force. According to the weather he times his winter-sleep. For 

 his bed he selects a suitable place under a fallen giant tree; there 

 he scrapes out a shallow hole, covers the floor with fine pine-twigs 

 and moss a foot and a half deep, cushions the side-walls with the same 

 material, covers the outside with branches and pieces of stem, creeps 

 into the interior, and allows himself to be snowed up. If the first 

 snowfall surprise him on the mountains, he does not always 

 descend, but hides in a rock-cave which he furnishes as best he 

 can, or else expands a marmot's burrow till it is just big enough to 

 hold him, and there sleeps through the winter. Once sunk into deep 

 sleep, he lies dormant so obstinately that many efforts are often 

 necessary to rouse him; he bites savagely at the poles with which 

 the huntsman tries to poke him up, he growls and roars, and only 

 surrenders when rockets or fire-brands are thrown on his refuge. 

 Then, if he be not wounded, he rushes forth like a startled boar, 

 and seeks safety in rapid flight. According to the consistent 

 evidence of all experienced huntsmen, the she-bear brings forth 

 young only every second winter, and does not awake from her deep 

 sleep until a short time before the birth; she licks her cubs clean 

 and dry, sets them to suck, and continues her sleep in snatches. At 

 the end of May or in June she seeks out her older children, of two 

 or even four years' growth, and compels them to do service as 

 nurses. 37 



Although the flesh of the bear is by no means unpalatable, it is 

 but little esteemed in West Siberia, where bear-hams are served up 

 rather in obedience to fashion than from appreciation of the dish. 

 Nevertheless, the bear-hunt brings in rich gain. The skin is in great 

 demand for sledge-rugs and fetches a high price; teeth and claws 

 serve not only among the Ostiaks and Samoyedes, but also among 

 the West Siberian peasants, as potent charms; even the bones are 

 now and then used. The canine of a bear slain in honourable 

 combat brings to the Ostiak hunter, so he believes, supernatural 

 gifts, especially courage, strength, and even invulnerability. A 

 claw, especially the fourth of the right fore-foot, which corresponds 



