296 AUDUBON THE NATURALIST. 
and by red man, this animal is fortunately not 
very abundant to the eastward of the Rocky 
-Mountains, and the chance of encountering him 
does not often occur. We saw only a few of 
these formidable beasts during our expedition 
up the Missouri river, and in the country over 
which we hunted during our last journey to the 
west. 
The Indians, as is well known, consider the ° 
slaughter of a grizzly bear a feat second only to 
scalping an enemy, and necklaces made of the 
claws of this beast are worn as trophies by even 
the bravest among them. 
On the 22d of August, 1843, we killed one 
of these bears, and as our journals are before us, 
and thinking it may be of interest, we will ex- 
tract the account of the day’s proceedings, al- 
though part of it has no connection with our 
present subject. We were descending the Upper 
Missouri river. 
“The weather being fine, we left. our camp of 
the previous night early, but had made only 
about twelve miles when the wind arose and 
prevented our men from making any headway 
with the oars; we therefore landed under a high 
bank amongst a number of fallen trees and some 
drifted timber. All hands went in search of 
elks. Mr. Culbertson killed a deer, and with 
the help of Mr. Squires brought the meat to the 
