BEARS AND BEAR-HUNTING. 
BY CHARLES WRIGHT. 

“Nores of a Hunter,” by Henry Clapp, call to mind some 
personal experience about bears and bear-hunting in Texas. 
I was much in the company of Mr. Benjamin Burke, a very 
observing, intelligent, and truthful man. He imparted to 
me many items of information respecting the habits of the 
bear. Some of these habits I had the opportunity of observ- 
ing myself, and I have full confidence in the truth of his 
statements relative to the others. 
I had read in my youth, in some great encyclopedia, that 
the bear goes to his winter’s sleep very fat, and awakes from 
it, in the spring, very lean. I was surprised then to learn, 
that, so far as can be judged by appearances, he loses none 
of his fat during hibernation. Of course, in his wild state 
we cannot weigh him before going to sleep and after he 
wakes. The hunter says he goes to his winter-quarters 
“full fat,” and comes out “full fat.” Z know that he is fat 
when he begins to travel in the spring; but he becomes lean 
rapidly, notwithstanding he may find plenty to eat. At this 
period, he is din to hogs; indeed, all the summer, 
till the return of mast (acorns, grapes, and other autumn 
fruits) offers him better food. Mr. Burke had a very large, 
gentle boar (he was raised as a pet) which was caught by a 
bear; but he broke away, and came to the house with a 
gaping wound just over the middle of his back. A gang of 
hogs will rally, in self-defence, against a wolf, a panther, or 
any other animal of this country that I know of, except a 
ar. If you want to scatter a gang, throw among them a 
bit of fresh bear-skin. Apropos of this a story is ‘told, for 
the truth of which I do not vouch, though I think it not im- 
probable, that a man’s hogs being in the habit of breaking 
into his neighbor’s field, i latter caught one, sewed it up 
in the skin of a bear newly killed, and bicned it loose among 
AMER. NATURALIST, VOL. II. 16 121 

