264 SHORT STALKS 



weigliing 20 lbs. aud carrying a 4-oz. bullet. It had been 

 for several generations an lieirloom in his family, and he 

 looked doubtfully at our express rifles, the bore of which 

 he kept contemptuously measuring with his little finger. 



Bears are passionately fond of all kinds of berries which 

 ripen in this month of September, aud they greedily devour 

 bilberries, blueberries, cranberries, raspberries, and moltehcer 

 or cloudberries. We therefore crept stealthily about, to 

 the various points which commanded the banks and hollows 

 where such berries abounded, and especially the copses 

 where the rowan grew. Many of these trees were found 

 broken and bent down, for the sake of the scarlet clusters 

 wdiich adorn them, for, if there is a dessert which Bruin 

 prefers to all others, it is these. But of the bears 

 themselves we saw none that day, and this was not surpris- 

 ino;. Thereafter we never went more than two tooether. 

 Bears do most of their feedinu' and travellino- — often for 

 long; distances — at nio-ht, and durino; daylioht are on foot 

 for a short time only, morning and evening. The inter- 

 vening hours are spent in some secure ambuscade whence 

 they can make a rapid retreat through the thicket if dis- 

 turbed. For this reason we made two distinct expeditions 

 each day — at the earliest dawn and again about sunset — 

 and devoted the middle of the day to replenishing the 

 larder with ptarmigan or grouse, from some beat which we 

 had thoroughly hunted. On the third day news was 

 l^rou^ht to us of a large bear liavino- attacked a horse on 

 the other side of the fjord. That "Nicholas" occasionally 

 does this with success has been frequently attested. Old 

 Lloyd describes his method of proceeding, wliicli is "to 

 grasp the neck of the horse with one arm and to arrest its 



