32 CARNIVORES. 
“bear-shooting is one of the most entertaining of sports. Some sportsmen have 
spoken disparagingly of it, and I daresay sitting up half the night watching for a 
bear’s return to his cave, and killing him without adventure, may be poor 
fun. ... But bear-shooting conducted on proper principles, with two or three 
bears afoot together, lacks neither excitement nor amusement. It is not very 
dangerous sport, as the animal can be so easily seen, whilst he is not so active as a 
tiger or a panther. Still he is very tough, and to anyone who would value him 
for his demonstrations, he would appear sufficiently formidable. If a bear charges 
he can generally be killed without more ado by a shot in the head when within 
two paces. The belief that a bear rises on his hind-legs when near his adversary, 
and thus offers a shot at the horseshoe mark on his chest, is groundless. I have shot 
several bears within a few feet, and they were still coming on on all-fours. No 
doubt when a bear reaches his man he rises to claw and bite him, but not before.” 
Jerdon states that in the extreme south of India, among certain hill- 
tribes known as Polygars, sloth-bears used to be hunted with large dogs, and 
when brought to bay were attacked by the hunters with long poles smeared at the 
end with bird-lime. The bird-lime caused the shaggy coat of the bears to become 
fixed to the end of the pole, so that the animals soon became firmly held. A single 
fragment of a bone of the fore-limb discovered in a cave in Madras proves that the 
sloth-bear has been an inhabitant of India since a period when several kinds of 
extinct mammals flourished there. And the extinct Theobald’s bear from the 
Siwalik Hills, mentioned on p. 26, serves to indicate that the sloth-bear is a 
specially-modified form derived from bears belonging to the typical genus, since the 
skull of that extinct species presents characters intermediate between those of 
ordinary bears and that of the sloth-bear. 
THE PARTI-COLOURED BEAR. 
Genus dluropus. 
A large number of the mammals from the highlands of Tibet belong to types 
quite unlike those found in any other part of the world; and in no case is this 
dissimilarity more marked than in the animal which may be termed the parti- 
coloured bear (4luropus melanoleucus). 
This strange animal, which has been known to European science only since 
the year 1869, is of the approximate dimensions of a small brown bear, and has a 
general bear-like aspect, although differing from all the other members of the 
family in its parti-coloured coat. The fur is long and close, with a thick, woolly 
under-fur. The general colour is white, but the eyes are surrounded with black 
rings, the small ears are also black, while the shoulders are marked by a transverse 
stripe of the same colour gradually increasing in width as it approaches the fore- 
limbs, which are also entirely black, as are likewise the hind-limbs. This peculiar 
coloration communicates a most extraordinary appearance to the creature; and 
without knowing more of its natural surroundings it is difficult to imagine the 
object of such a staring contrast. The tail is extremely short; and the soles of the 
feet are hairy. 
