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PASSIONAL ZOOLOGY. 
I knew a bear-hunter who had in this manner killed sixty bears. 
I need hardly add that he failed of his sixty-first, which did not 
fail of him. 
Travelers of North America, who know all the importance 
which the bear attaches to the etiquette of politeness, and to the 
slightest testimonies of consideration on the part of man, never, it 
is said, forget to salute him when they meet him on their road. 
Buenos dias, homhre — good day, man, they sajL Trustworthy 
persons have assured me that merely this flattering address often 
sufficed to cause the worst-disposed bear to forget his homicidal 
intentions. The bear is not the enemy of man, he sometimes eats 
him, it is true, but almost always with regret, and in his own de- 
fense and preservation. ' When he is the aggressor, it is because 
his hunger is pressing, and the winter outrageously prolonged. 
It is the severity of the winter which is responsible for the 
crimes of hunger, and not the stomach of the poor beast. 
We must take account of the extenuating circumstance of hun« 
ger in behalf of the bear, if we would be pardoned ourselves, we 
rational creatures who delight in the fantastic homicide of war, of 
duels, of judicial murders ; who every day poison our fathers and 
mothers to enjoy a little sooner the wealth which their tenderness 
for us has amassed. We who every day sell the flesh of our 
daughters before the magistrate without any compulsion thereto. 
The bear is so little the enemy of man that he has never raised 
his hand against him except in the exigences of hunger, or of 
leo'itimate defense. Bears have been often known to drive trav- 
O 
elers away violently from the neighborhood of their cubs, but who 
could impute it as a crime to the poor mother to exaggerate the 
dangers which threaten her children, and to tremble for their shin, 
when she reflects on the disastrous consumption of that provision 
made by the single institution of the National Guard, for it is well 
to repeat that the French National Guard is the black beast of 
the Bear, on account of the bear-skin cap with which its princi- 
pal company is adorned. The bear awaits with no less impatience 
than all persons of taste, the suppression of this absurd and too 
louff-honored costume. The extreme tenderness of the bear for 
O 
her cubs is a text on which every writer on animals has enlarged. 
