148 
GRIZZLY BEAR. 
account which he gives is fully credited by the traders resident in that pari 
of the country, who are best qualified to judge of its truth from the know- 
ledge of the parties. I have been told that there is a man now living in 
the neighbourhood of Edmonton-house who was attacked by a Grizzly 
Bear, which sprang out of a thicket, and with one stroke of its paw com- 
pletely scalped him, laying bare the skull and bringing the skin of the 
forehead down over the eyes. Assistance coming up, the Bear made oft 
without doing him further injury, but the scalp not being replaced, the poor 
man has lost his sight, although he thinks that his eyes are uninjured.” 
Mr. Drummond, in his excursions over the Rocky Mountains, had 
frequent opportunities of observing the manners of the Grizzly Bear, and 
it often happened that in turning the point of a rock or sharp angle of a 
valley, he came suddenly upon one or more of them. On such occasions 
they reared on their hind legs and made a loud noise like a person breath- 
ing quick, but much harsher. He kept his ground without attempting to 
molest them, and they, on their part, after attentively regarding him for 
some time, generally wheeled round and galloped off, though, from their 
disposition, there is little doubt but he would have been torn in pieces had 
he lost his presence of mind and attempted to fly. When he discovered 
them from a distance, he generally frightened them away by beating on a 
large tin box, in which he carried his specimens of plants. He never saw 
more than four together, and two of these he supposes to have been cubs ; 
he more often met them singly or in pairs. He was only once attacked, 
and then by a female, for the purpose of allowing her cubs time to escape. 
His gun on this occasion missed fire, but he kept her at bay with the stock 
of it, until some gentlemen of the Hudson’s Bay Company, with whom he 
was travelling at the time, came up and drove her off'. In the latter end 
of June, 1826, he observed a male caressing a female, and soon afterwards 
they both came towards him, but whether accidentally, or for the purpose 
of attacking him, he was uncertain. He ascended a tree, and as the female 
drew near, fired at and mortally wounded her. She uttered a few loud 
screams, which threw the male into a furious rage, and he reared up 
against the trunk of the tree in which Mr. Drummond was seated, but 
never attempted to ascend it. The female, in the meantime, retired to a 
short distance, lay down, and as the male was proceeding to join her, Mr. 
Drummond shot him also. 
The young Grizzly Bears and gravid females hibernate, but the older 
males often come abroad in the winter in quest of food. Mackenzie 
mentions the den or winter retreat of a Grizzly Bear, which was ten feet 
wide, five feet high, and six feet long. 
