URSUS AMERICANUS. 
103 
are busy in tearing the flesh from his legs or ripping open his 
bowels. 
Bears are frequently tamed and, being intelligent brutes, make in- 
teresting pets ; but their dispositions are not of the gentlest type, 
and in growing old, they are apt, at times, to become obstinate and 
unruly, if not dangerous, and often have to be killed. 
A curious instance of the mischief-making propensity of this ani- 
mal has recently attracted considerable attention. During the past 
summer (1882) the Adirondack Survey established a Signal Station 
on Black Mountain, near the head of Fourth Lake. Returning one 
day, after a temporary absence, the members of the party were as- 
tonished to find their tent torn down, and blankets books, and instru- 
ments strewn about upon the ground. The footprints of a Bear re- 
vealed the identity of the marauder; and Mr. Colvin, Superintendent 
of the Survey, afterwards fired at and wounded the beast, but did 
not succeed in capturing him. 
There being no bounty on Bears in New York State, it is impossi- 
ble to ascertain how many are annually destroyed in this Wilderness. 
That the average number killed each year exceeds thirty there can 
be no reasonable doubt, and I have known this number to be killed 
in Lewis County alone in a single season. 
Bear’s meat is sometimes very good, and sometimes quite the re- 
verse. I have eaten it when it tasted like fresh pork, and at other 
times when its flavor was so rank and disagreeable as to render it 
quite unpalatable. Age, sex, season, and food have to do with this 
difference. 
In Forest and Stream for Dec. 26, 1878, is printed a portion of an 
original manuscript of one Paul Dudley, written about the year 1718. 
One paragraph, relating to this species, runs as follows : 
“ Black Bears — When the snow is deep they den, and don’t come 
out till the snow is so wasted as they can trail their food — nuts, 
acorns, frogs, berries, crickets, grapes — and preys also. Don’t carry 
food into their dens; generally den alone, unless it be a she with her 
