THE KING OF THE WILDERNESS. 195 



he intended to capture as soon as they were old 

 enough to be taken from their motlier, was antici- 

 pated in one instance by a fisher and in the other 

 by a fox. Of course the marauders entered the 

 dens when mother bear was not at liome, but out 

 on the search for food ; however, in the case of 

 the fox, who was not sufficiently sagacious to time 

 himself for his work, the bear arrived home sooner 

 than was expected and tore the base intruder into 

 shreds. 



It is a surprising fact, not without pathetic inter- 

 est, that the bear rears her young in late winter when 

 food is so scarce that one wonders where the poor 

 mother finds sufficient to keep herself alive. 



Bruin suffers most at the hand of man, and is 

 hunted to death in a greater variety of ways than 

 I have space here to describe. "When he can not 

 be persuaded to leave his den by any other means, 

 and he is inaccessible, a fire of moss and pine boughs 

 is started at the entrance and he is smoked out; 

 but he will frequently issue forth in great rage and 

 trample the fire out. In a quaint old manuscript 

 of Paul Dudley, dated 1Y18, there is an amusing de- 

 scription of a bear hunt, which I will quote in part : 

 " Dog scents them & Barks, then they come out. 

 But if snow be deep they wont stir : they then put 

 fire in Hole of a Tree then the Bear will come 



