THE BROWN BEAR. 



are excellent fwimmers, while they retain their fat, and crofs the large!! 

 rivers with perfect eafe. 



The chafe of the Bear is attended with little or no danger, if properly 

 conducted ; and, as it is highly lucrative, when fuccefsful, it is much 

 practifed in thofe parts where the animal is found. Other means are 

 likewife ufed to take them. In Sweden, Norway, and Poland, they mix 

 fpirits with honey, and leave this compofition in the Bear's way ; the animal 

 drinks eagerly of it, and, becoming intoxicated, is eafily fubdued. In Canada 

 and Louifiana, where the Black Bears ufually refide in the decayed parts of 

 old trees thirty or forty feet high, they kindle a fire at the bottom of the tree, , 

 by the fmoke of which the family, confilUng generally of a female and her 

 cubs, are prefently difturbed; the mother defcends firit, and is killed before 

 fhe reaches the ground ; the cubs foon follow, and are eafily fecured, by 

 throwing a noofe round their necks ; they are then all carried home, the 

 young ones are either preferved and brought up, or killed for the fake of 

 their Ikin and.nefh, which is very delicate and good. 



In the northern parts of Siberia and Kamtfchatka(A), the Bears are 

 neither large nor fierce; they are in general quiet and inoffenfive, unlefs 

 they happen to find one of the natives afleep, when they often tear the fcalp 

 from the back part of their heads, and fometimes lacerate the flefhy parts, 

 but never eat them. People are frequently met with, who have 

 experienced this uncivil treatment, and thofe who have been thus wounded 

 are called Dranki. Although the Bears are fo numerous in Kamtfchatka, as 

 to cover the fields in fummer like cattle, they never hurt the women, but 

 accompany them like tame animals, when they go to gather berries, which 

 indeed the Bears fometimes rob them of, but do them no other harm. They 

 are very fond of fifth, and defcend from the hills to the proper places for 

 catching them, which are the mouths of large rivers, into which the fifh enter 

 in vafl fhoals at certain feafons of the year. At firft, the profufion is fo great, 

 that they only eat and fuck the bones of the heads, and will not meddle with 

 the bodies ; but, as they become fcarcer, they are glad to return to what they 



(a) The following particulars are extra&ed from the Hiftory of Kamtfchatka, tranflated by Dr. Greive. 



