312 CHARACTER OF THE BEAR. 



of striking terrific blows with their fore-paws, which, if they take effect upon their object, 

 cause the most dreadful injuries. 



The paws of the Bears are armed with long and sharp talons, which are not capable of 

 retraction, but which are most efficient weapons of offence when urged by the powerful muscles 

 which give force to the Bear's limbs. Should the adversary contrive to elude the quick and 

 heavy blows of the paw, the Bear endeavors to seize the foe round the body, and by dint of 

 sheer pressure to overcome its enemy. In guarding itself from the blows which are aimed at 

 it by its adversary the Bear is singularly adroit, warding off the fiercest strokes with a dex- 

 terity that might be envied by many a pretender to the pugilistic art. 



Few antagonists are so formidable to the experienced hunter as the Bear, whether it be 

 the Brown Bear of Northern Europe, the Black or Grizzly Bear of America, the Aswail of 

 India, or the Polar Bear of the Arctic regions ; and although there are a few instances where 

 a man has conquered a Bear in fair hand-to-hand combat, there are a few animals whom a 

 hunter would not rather oppose than the Bear, provided that he were deprived of fire-arms, 

 and furnished only with a knife or hatchet. On one or two occasions, a foolhardy and igno- 

 rant person has ventured to attack and to kill a Bear in single combat, but in such instances 

 the victory has almost always been attributable to some accident which never could have been 

 foreseen, and on which no real hunter would have calculated. In fact, the more experienced 

 the hunter, the less will he venture himself against the beast, which, according to Scandi- 

 navian aphorism, "has the strength often men and the sense of twelve." 



With fearful ingenuity, the Bear, when engaged with a human foe, directs its attacks 

 upon the head of its antagonist, and if one of its powerful strokes should take effect, has been 

 known to strike the entire scalp from off the head at a single blow. Mr. Lloyd, who had the 

 great misfortune to be struck down by a Bear, and the singular good fortune to escape from 

 its fangs, says that when he was lying on the ground at the mercy of the angry beast, the 

 animal, after biting him upon the arms and legs, deliberately settled itself upon his head, and 

 began to scarify it in the most business-like manner, leaving wounds of eight and nine inches 

 in length. The experience of this practiced Bear-hunter goes to show that the Bear does not 

 make use of its claws when its opponent has been once struck down, but inflicts its subsequent 

 injuries wholly with its teeth. It does not appear from Mr. Lloyd's account that the senses 

 of a person who is seized by a Bear are blunted in the manner which takes place when a lion 

 or tiger is the assailant. 



All the Bears are the more terrible antagonists from their extreme tenacity of life, and the 

 fearful energy which they compress into the last moment of existence when they are suffering 

 from a mortal wound. Unless struck in the heart or brain, the mortally wounded Bear is more 

 to be feared than if it had received no injury whatever, and contrives to wreak more harm in 

 the few minutes that immediately precede its decease than it had achieved while still uninjured. 

 Many a hunter has received mortal wounds by incautiously approaching a Bear which lay 

 quiescent in apparent death, but was really only stunned for the moment by the shock of the 

 injury which it had received, and which in a very few minutes would have deprived it of life. 



Several species of Bears are now recognized by systematic naturalists, the principal 

 examples of which will be noticed in the following pages. 



The Brown Bear is a creature which is found rather plentifully in forests and the 

 mountainous districts of many portions of Europe and Asia. As may be supposed from its 

 title, the color of its fur is brown, slightly variable in tint in different individuals, and often 

 in the same individual at various ages. In many specimens it is found that the neck is encir- 

 cled with a white band when the animal is young, but that this curious mark is soon merged 

 into the general brown tint of the fur as the animal increases in years and dimensions. This 

 white neck-band was once supposed to be the mark of a male cub, but is now ascertained 

 that it belongs equally to the male and female sex. In general it is merged into the brown fur 

 after the second or third year, but in some instances it remains throughout the entire life of 

 the animal, which is on that account termed a " Ring Bear." 



The size to which a well-fed and undisturbed Brown Bear will grow is really surprising, 



