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CHAPTER VIII. 



CAVE LODGERS. 



THE BLACK BEAR. 



(Ursus Aviericanus, Pallas.) 



This species has a most extensive range in North 

 America, is common in all wooded districts from the 

 mouths of the ]\Iississippi to the shores of Hudson's 

 Bay, from the Labrador, Newfoundland, and the islands 

 of the Gulf, to Vancouver, and is found wherever 

 northern fir-thickets or the tangled cane-brakes of more 

 southern regions oiler him a retreat. 



In the Eastern woodlands the black bear (here the 

 sole representative of his genus) is the only large wild 

 animal that becomes offensive when numerous, as he is 

 still in all the Lower Provinces. He is a continual source 

 of anxious dread to the settler, whose cattle, obliged to 

 wander into the woods to seek provender, often meet 

 their fate at the hands of this lawless freebooter, who 

 will also burglariously break into the settler's barn, and, 

 abstracting sheep and small cattle, drag them off into 

 the neighbouring woods. And he is such an exceed- 

 ingly cunning, wide-awake beast that it is very seldom 

 he can be pursued and destroyed by the bullet, or 

 deluded into the trap or snare ; and hence he is not 



