184 
PASSIONAL ZOOLOGY. 
And it is thus/’ modestly concludes the narrator, that I have 
acquired the right to boast of having killed a black bear and a 
wild boar at one shot, and with No. 7 1” 
Fabulists and moralists have sadly contributed, according to 
their custom, to propagate these disastrous appreciations of the 
character of the bear ; and the love of science and of truth obliges 
me to redress their errors. 
For example, he is repi oached most frequently with fetching a 
murderous blow on the head of his friend the gardener, under 
pretense of ridding him of an unfortunate fly. I continually hear 
this reproach repeated. A certain paper never has an article in 
support of the government of its choice without recalling to my 
mind the proverbial awkwardness of tlmt bear of the fable. But 
I ask, nevertheless, where are the proofs that the thing has passed 
as the fabulists narrate ? I ask, where is the offlcial record of 
the coroner’s inquest, proving the decease and its cause, the name 
of the two personages, the place of the event ; for really, it will 
not answer to condemn honest people thus without proofs ; and 
these proofs, these official papers, I must say, exist in none of the 
archives of the civilized world, where I have souodit them in vain. 
I think myself then sufficiently authorized to declare apocryphal 
this history of the dead-boxer, the rather because I know by ex- 
perience that the bear is not only incapable of suoh awkwardness, 
but ought on the contrary to be esteemed one of the handiest 
beasts of the present creation. Here is an opportunity to .sig- 
nalize the danger of well- written books. If this calumny had not 
been stereotyped by the good La Fontaine in admirable verse, it 
would have glided, like many others, over the malice of men with- 
out leaving traces. Sacred history is not entirely free from re- 
proach of injustice with regard to the bear when it compares this 
animal to the second Persian monarchy, under pretext of perfect 
identity of character between the two races — perfidy and voracitv. 
The injurious comparison is from the prophet Daniel, the same 
who gained so high a reputation as a prophet beloved of God, by 
magnetizing several lions in a public and solemn session, at which 
a multitude of tyrants assisted, especially him of Babylon, who 
was afterward changed into a beast. Herodotus draws a portrait 
