46 Reminiscences of 



and have by last accounts had their comparatively 

 limited tract invaded by the ever-penetrating do- 

 mestic sheep. 



A conflict is now on between the sheep men and 

 the bears. The latter evincing their taste for mutton 

 in the waiting season for salmon — their main food — 

 have arousedt he former in defence, and the almost 

 inevitable .result will be extermination. A friend 

 of mine has in his possession a Kadiak bear skin of 

 enormous proportions, measuring from nose to end 

 of body nine feet, with a width in the middle of eight 

 feet. This may be a champion brown bear skin, and 

 from one which was estimated, although not au- 

 thenticated by sufficient evidence, at 2400 pounds. 



I have measured an enormous polar bear skin 

 which measured about the size of the Kadiak skin, 

 but the polar bear does reach the weight of the grizzly 

 family, being more sinuous in form. 



I would not now hunt and kill moose in the snow, 

 and at this time I look upon it with regret and con- 

 sider it unworthy of selection by a sportsman unless 

 necessitated by need of food, and confess to having 

 aided in killing two others in a similar manner, as 

 well as deer. There are many things in later life I 

 have to regret of acts in early days, as I doubt not 

 others have. Youth is more eager and thoughtless, 

 and less governed by reflection than age, as eagerness 

 overtops reason, and I fear there are many of mature 

 age who fail to recognize the claims of right over 

 inborn selfishness and destructive impulses. 



I have occasionally met moose in the Maine woods. 

 One day in a birch canoe, rounding a point on the 

 Megalloway River, we ran close upon a large cow 



