The Grizzly Bear 371 



never saw until too late, and the writer, except for the good 

 fortune of being pitched over a precipice, would have been 

 another. Some authors have a curious way of accounting 

 for these incidents. They say that they occur because the 

 animal was actually cornered, or if that statement cannot 

 be made to fit the circumstances, its attack is attributed to 

 an impression that it could not get away. There is no 

 need to dwell upon this explanation. It is merely a blank 

 assertion upon the part of those who know nothing about 

 what the beast thinks or feels, and it is plainly one-sided 

 in so far as it omits to take cognizance of the constitutional 

 •temper and tendencies of the creature whose acts are dis- 

 cussed. 



No writer of any note except General Marcy has, so far 

 as the author knows, denied that a grizzly bear soon comes 

 to bay, and that he then devotes his energies to destruc- 

 tion with entire single-mindedness. Those who have met 

 him, alike with those who have acquainted themselves with 

 any completeness with the observations of others, know 

 that this brute's patience under aggression is of the brief- 

 est, and his inherent ferocity easily aroused. When it is 

 injured, the animal is exceptionally desperate, and fights 

 from the first as a lion, tiger, and jaguar are apt to do only 

 in their death rally. Colonel Dodge expresses the best 

 opinions upon this point in saying that " when wounded, a 

 grizzly bear attacks with the utmost ferocity, and regard- 

 less of the number or nature of his assailants. Then he 

 is without doubt the most formidable and dangerous of 

 wild beasts." 



"In some way it has come about," says Lockwood, 



