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MISCELLANEOUS NOTES. 



1^0. I— NOTES ON THE INDIAN BEAR (MELURSUS UBSINUSJ, 



By Reginald Gilbert, 



{With a Plate.) 



This bear -whicli is still to be found all over the Indian Peninsula is, I fear, 

 gradually disappearing. Twenty years ago it was very common throughout 

 the Bombay Presidency, and I know many jungles and districts, in which I 

 have formally shot many, where they are now rarely or never to be found. 

 In wild and rocky districts, far away from the line of rail, no doubt they 

 exist in numbers, and frequent the same jungles year after year, but still they 

 are gradually being reduced. 



To see a bear lolluping along, when disturbed, is a sight -which always 

 causes me amusement, but with all its apparent clumsiness and awkwardness, 

 it can get over rough ground as quick as most animals, and, when wounded, 

 will fight for its life often with great ferocity. It is not an animal which 

 causes much injury to the natives or their cattle or crops, but occasionally 

 it takes to man-killing, or man-mauling, for no apparent reason, and then, of 

 course, it becomes the terror of its particular district. I have only known 

 of one man-killer. It was a she-bear with three grown cubs in the Dha- 

 rampur State, and killed a man close to a camp occupied by Mr. E. L. Barton 

 and myself when we were on a shooting trip in that State. She laid up in a 

 jungle close by, after committing this ill-deed, and we had no trouble in killing 

 her, I wrote an account to our Magazine about this bear,* so it is unnecessary 

 to say here any more about her. When wounded, however, there is no doubt 

 the bear is very ferocious, and inflicts the most fearful wounds with its claws^^ 

 on its victims. 



My first introduction to the bear was on a shooting trip I took alone 

 when first I came to this country. I set out from Lanowlee and after 

 marching 25 miles south along the ghfits, I got "khubber" of bear, and 

 immediately sent men out for the purpose of watching from the hill-tops in 

 the early morning, when the bears returned to lay up for the day in the 

 hills. The men marked down a bear in thick jungle on the side of the hill, 

 and they placed other men all round to watch the place till I arrived. When 

 I arrived, however, and before the beat was organised, they made so much 

 noise, talking and shouting to one another, that the bear woke up and made 

 oflP. He came, however, broadside to me, and presented a shot at about 60 

 yards, but much to my vexation, although I wounded him, he got clean away,, 

 and left me under the impression that he was the most cowardly of animals — 

 an impression which was rudely disturbed next day. The next night I sent 

 out men again to watch the hills, and, strange to say, they marked down 

 * Vide No. 2, Vol. VI, page 276, of this Journal— Ed. 



