A MAN-SLAYING BEAR. 231 



work of thorns, who ought to have maintained their strong 

 position, but the bear, making straight for it, regardless of 

 their presence, put them to ignominious flight with a few 

 surly growls, going up the bank with extraordinary agility, 

 neither of the noble sportsmen firing a shot in self-defence. 

 Bruin, having made up his mind to take that particular 

 line, was not to be diverted from it, but he might have 

 been killed with ease by a cool hand from such an advan- 

 tageous position. 



Bears are eccentric in many respects, and have a strange 

 fancy for exploring the interiors of buildings which fall in 

 their way, either in search of food, or merely to satisfy an 

 intelligent curiosity ; thus they will occupy a room in a re- 

 mote or seldom visited out-factory, and will enter empty 

 houses and dig up the earthen floor for white ants. I once 

 had occasion to put up for a day or two in a school-house 

 for native boys, the floor of which had been thoroughly 

 examined for termites' nests by bears which must have come 

 some miles at night for that purpose, for I failed to find 

 even one, although I carefully beat every cover for five or 

 six miles around. The villagers accepted these visits philo- 

 sophically, and did nothing to discourage them, so long as 

 the bears permitted the boys to attend to the lessons by 

 day. 



Where bears are numerous, many wood-cutters, herds- 

 men, and others are every year seriously injured by them, 

 especially at the season when boys and women enter the 

 woods in search of plums and berries, or to collect the flower 

 of the " mowah," in all which Bruin considers he has vested 

 rights superior to those of bipeds ; but on the whole, and as a 

 race, they are not malevolently inclined, and, like other wild 

 animals, differ among themselves in temper and disposition. 

 There is a notorious old male bear in the Manbhoom district, 

 who for fifteen years has been the terror of the peasantry 

 dwelling in the vicinity of his fastness, upon a high rocky 

 hill full of caverns. This beast has slaughtered and maimed 

 a great many people, and is as crafty and cautious as he is 



