DRIVING A BEAR OUT OF SUGAR-CANES 



THE Bengal bear is distinguished by the deep black colour of his hair, which is long and thinly 

 scattered over his body, and by a crescent of white, like a gorget, on his breast. His hind legs 

 are shorter, and the paws flatter and longer than those of the European breed ; his pace more 

 shuffling and laboured. Clumsy, however, as he looks, it would fare ill with a man on foot who 

 thought to outstrip him. He is nimble enough, too, in climbing, and will be up in no time 

 amid the branches of a tree in which instinct tells him that a banquet of nuts will reward his 

 activity. Steep, unfrequented banks, or burrows made by jackals and other animals, are his 

 most frequent shelter, but a plantation of sugar-cane is the delight of his heart, the cover being 

 thick and cool, and the succulent stalks furnishing him with both meat and drink. To the 

 native he is a foe to be shirked unless under the protecting convoy of European sportsmen, 

 when a whole village will gladly turn out to beat a khet (field). Such a scene we have here. 

 Roused from his pleasant retreat, Bruin is making off for one of his hiding-places. The field, 

 with a legion of pariah dogs, is in full chase, while in a tree, to which the quarry is to be driven^ 

 a native shikari is ambushed with his rifle ready for the devastator of the village crops. The 

 conical mounds in the right foreground are heaps of earth thrown up by those pestilent little 



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