110 A SPBING' AND SUMMER IN LAPLAND. 



first aroused by the cackle of a lot of willow 

 grouse about 200 yards from me. I immediately 

 supposed that some owl or large bird of prey was 

 making an attack upon the brood, and although 

 my gun was only loaded with No. 7, I thought it 

 possible that I might creep up within shot. I 

 could see nothing as yet ; but a cracking of dry 

 branches soon told me that it was no bird, but 

 some beast of prey, that was raising this com- 

 motion among the ripa family. I stood still close 

 to a large dead pine, when I indistinctly saw 

 something grey through the trees, which I at first 

 thought must be a reindeer. A few seconds, how- 

 ever, soon showed me that it was no reindeer, but 

 the real " old gentleman in the fur cloak," upon 

 whose privacy I had thus intruded. He came 

 walking into an open space right in front of me 

 in fact, was within 100 yards of me, and appeared 

 to be coming straight up. I felt at this moment 

 much as I did upon one occasion in Australia, 

 when creeping cautiously down a narrow track 

 through the tea-tree scrub to a favourite water- 

 hole for duck, I suddenly found myself face to face 

 with a half-wild bull, who was leisurely return- 

 ing from drinking, through a track too narrow for 

 us to pass each other, the scrub on each side 

 nearly as solid as a wall. But to return to my 

 bear. He evidently neither saw nor smelt me, 



