92 
THE CABINET OF NATURAL HISTORY, 
I had got him home, I didn't know what to do with him, 
and so I sold him to this fellow in the white hat for fifteen 
dollars, and he sold him to a yankee pedlar for fifty dol- 
lars — them yankee pedlars will buy any thing; but the 
pedlar paid for the painter in wooden clocks; and after the 
pedlar went away, none of the clocks would go. Tom — 
him in the white hat — said they all acted as if they were 
bewitched, and he got so mad at them, that he said he had 
a great mind to knock them all to pieces. But all this 
wouldn’t have been so bad as it is, if the pedlar, when he 
was going to take the young painter away, hadn’t made a 
bargain with Tom for a buck elk — I think he took the 
bark off of you there, Tommy. Tom don’t like to tell that 
story, and so, I suppose, since you have made me tell mine, 
I must tell his’n. 
“May be you know that there is still a heap of elks in 
that tract of country, away across from the Sinnemahoning 
to Toby creek. Well, the pedlar told Tom, when he bought 
the young painter, that he would give him a hundred and 
fifty dollars, and may be, two hundred dollars, if he would 
bring him a live buck elk, away to where he lived, at Ro- 
chester, in New-York state; and so Tom and another chap 
agreed to go halves in wha.t they could make; and the first 
chunk of a snow storm that came, they set out on a hunt-like, 
and got ropes and dogs with them, and when they got on the 
track of some elks, they picked for the biggest track, and 
run a great buck elk so, that at last he took to fight the 
dogs till the men come up, and they got their ropes about 
his horns and tangled him so, that finally they got him 
down and secured him; and Tom thought it so fine an op- 
portunity to make a fortin, that when they had got the elk 
tied to a tree, he offered the other chap fifty dollars for his 
chance, and he took him up at his offer at once. So Tom, 
as soon as he got ready, streaked it off with his elk to go 
to Rochester — a horse, with a long rope to the elk’s horns 
before, to pull him along if he wanted to keep back; and 
two men, with each a rope to his horns, to hold him back 
if he wanted to pitch at the horse. So they went on for 
two days. Tom rode the horse, and the horse was almost 
sheared to death, and kept his head over one shoulder all 
the way, looking back at the elk, and the elk, he was na- 
tion sulkey; and they had a cruel time of it. Tom says, 
that the elk put up his hair all the wrong way, and was 
tarnal angry at all about him; and before they passed 
through Potter county, the elk, I suppose, thought he would 
not be made a fool of any longer, and so he jist laid down 
and died; and poor Tom here, had to go home again, and 
pay the fifty dollars to his partner in the hunt. He offered 
the fellow all the clocks which he had got in the bargain 
for my painter; but the other said he wouldn’t have any 
thing to do with such nation silly things that wouldn’t go 
at all; and if they did go, would make a noise like a house 
full of rattle snakes. 
“And so Tom lays the blame of all this on my young 
painter; but it wasn’t my painter at all that did it; and his 
old aunt Keezy told him so, and said that it was all a right- 
eous judgment on him, for having any thing to do with 
one of them horn-flint, wooden-nutmeg yankee pedlars. 
And I am quite entirely of aunt Keezy’s mind. Now, 
an’t. she right, Tom?” R. 
SCIPIQ AND THE BEAR. 
• 
The Black Bear ( Ursus americanus, ) however clum- 
sy in appearance, is active, vigilant, and persevering; 
possesses great strength, courage, and address; and un- 
dergoes with little injury the greatest fatigues and hard- 
ships in avoiding the pursuit of the hunter. Like the 
deer, it changes its haunts with the seasons, and for the 
same reason, namely, the desire of obtaining suitable 
food, or of retiring to the more inaccessibfb parts, where 
it can pass the time in security, unobserved by man, the 
most dangerous of its enemies. During the spring months 
it searches for food in the low, rich, alluvial lands that 
border the rivers, or by the margins of such inland lakes 
as, on account of their small size, are called by us ponds. 
There it procures abundance of succulent roots, and of the 
tender juicy stems of plants, upon which it chiefly feeds 
at that season. During the summer heat it enters the 
gloomy swamps, passes much of its time in wallowing in 
the mud, like a hog, and contents itself with crayfish, 
roots, and nettles, now and then, when hard pressed 
by hunger, seizing on a young pig, or perhaps a sow, 
or even a calf. As soon as the different kinds of 
berries which grow on the mountains begin to ripen, 
the bears betake themselves to the high grounds, fol- 
lowed by their cubs. In such retired parts of the coun- 
try where there are no hilly grounds, it pays visits to the 
maize fields, which it ravages for a while. After this, the 
various species of nuts, acorns, grapes and other forest 
fruits, that form what in the western country is called 
mast, attract its attention. The bear is then seen ram- 
bling singly through the woods to gather this harvest, not for- 
getting meanwhile to rob every bee-tree it meets with, hears 
being, as you well know, expert at this operation. You 
also know that they are good climbers, and may have been 
told, or at least may now be told, that the Black Bear now 
and then houses itself in the hollow trunks of the larger 
trees for weeks together, when it is said to suck its paws. 
You are probably not aware of a habit in which it in- 
