3^2 THE AMERICAN BEAR. 



selves with singeing the skin, as is practised with 

 Hops *." 



It is common with the Southern Indians of Amc- 

 rica, to tame and domesticate the young cubs of 

 the Bear ; and these are frequently taken so young 

 that they cannot eat. On such occasions the In- 

 dians often obhge their wives to suckle them ; and 

 one of the Company's servants at Hudson's Bay, 

 whose name was Isaac Batt, wilhng to be as great 

 a brute as his Indian companions, absolutely forced 

 one of his wives, who had recently lost her infant, 

 to suckle a young Bear -f. 



Lavs'son, Catesby, and Brickell :j:, all relate a 

 very surprising circumstance respecting this animal : 

 they say that neither European nor Indian ever kill- 

 ed a Bear with young. In one winter upwards of five 

 hundred were killed in Virginia ; among which were 

 only two females, and these not pregnant. The cause 

 is, that the male has the same dislike to his offspring 

 that the males of some other animals have; and 

 therefore the females, before the time of their par- 

 turition, retire into the depth of the woods and 

 rocks, to elude the search of their savage mates'^. 



The flesh of the American Bears is said to taste 

 like pork. Dr. Brickell ate part of a loin of it at a 

 planter's house in North Carolina, and mistook it 

 for excellent pork ; but such are the prejudices to 

 which mankind are subject, that the next day. 



♦ Charlevoix, Travels in North America, i. 180 — 187. 

 t I!cariic, '271, | Nat. Hist, of North Carolina, 112. § Penn. 

 Ai'ct. Zool, i. Go. 



