TIXG ADVENTURES 



stalked or hunted up wind, for " Cuffey," the familiar name 

 for the black bear, as " Old Ephraim " is for the grizzly is 

 keen of nose and ear, and will be out of the reach of its human 

 enemy long- before the latter knows that it is about. To show 

 how sensitive it is in the nose, I may mention an incident 

 that occurred to me in Washington Territory. Coming into 

 Seattle one day from Washington Lake, I rested for a short 

 time in the woods, using a fallen tree for a seat. While deeply 

 engaged in a brown study something startled me, and on look- 

 ing up I saw a bear and two cubs a short distance away, pick- 

 ing berries and searching old logs for grubs and the nests of 

 ants. As I wished to study them, I moved quietly to one 

 side, and secured a perch to the leeward, in a vine-maple tree. 

 While seated there I had a good opportunity of watching them, 

 and so amused was I with their affectionate demeanour and 

 joyous gambols that I took no notice of the direction in which 

 they were moving. In the course of perhaps half an hour they 

 jumped on the log on which I had been lounging, but they had 

 scarcely done so before they were off again and hastening into 

 the forest at their best pace, as if they were thoroughly 

 frightened. They must have got the odour left by my hand 

 on the wood, or they would not have left such a good grub and 

 ant ground as the log without searching it well, and feasting 

 on its dainties. I have found that farmers, when setting traps 

 for bears, could not get one to approach them until after the 

 wind and sun, or dew and rain, had taken away the smell 

 which the hands had left upon them. 



Ik'ing cautious and vigilant, and "knowing/' in the sense 

 of cunning, the bear is no stupid, to be slain without some 

 exercise of the perceptive qualities, unless it is taken at a great 

 disadvantage. I have known it to be captured in Western 

 rivers by steamboats and canoes, and one of the pleasantest 

 runs that I ever had after it was in a canoe, on the Chehalis 

 River, in Washington Territory. It is even found swimming 

 Puget Sound, which is an inland sea; and it is no uncommon 

 occurrence to see it using the currents of streams in its autumn 

 migrations from the high, cold mountains to the sheltered 

 Invests and warm climate of the coast. It takes boldly to the 



