THE KING OF THE WILDEBNESS. I97 



unexplained reason bruin exercises claws and teeth 

 on the bark of trees as he passes through the forest, 

 and thus leaves his autograph, which, sometimes to 

 his misfortune, serves as a guide for the hunter. 

 These tree marks have several times been noticed 

 in the wilderness which surrounds Slide Mountain 

 in the southern Catskills. The bear rises on his 

 hind legs, and, embracing the trunk with his fore 

 legs, tears the bark with tooth and claw for sev- 

 eral minutes, and then proceeds on his rambles. Mr. 

 James Gordon, writing on Bear-Hunting in the 

 South,* records his guide's remarks on these bear 

 scratches (they are always made by the male) as 

 follows : " Look close, and you will see the tallest 

 marks are the freshest. A young b'ar, feeling very 

 large all by himself, wrote his name thar fust. The 

 way he does it, he places his back ag'in' the tree " (a 

 position which does not seem to correspond with that 

 described by Audubon f ), " and, turning his head, 

 bites the bark as high as he can reach, which means, 

 in b'ar lingo, ' I'm boss of the woods : beware how 

 you trespass on my domains.' The next b'ar that 

 comes along takes the same position and tries to out- 

 reach the first. Now this old fellow has written in 

 bear hieroglyphics a foot higher, ' Mind your eye, 



* Vide The Century Magazine for October, 1881. 

 \ Vide Quadrupeds of North America. 



