1884 ] 
AMEEIOAK' AGKIOIJLTUEIST, 
343 
pointiug to the place where they had left the canoe. 
“Gone! oh! why didn’t we pull it higher up?” 
—“Too cold to swim, and too swift, too I ” said 
Walter, gazing ruefully into the ice-cold current; 
“and the island’s entirely too small on which to 
pass the time pleasantly, so long as there’s a bear 
on it! ”—“ Let’s climb the old chestnut,” said 
George, and the suggestion was immediately acted 
upon. “ Get far out on the slender limbs, Walt, 
where the bear couldn’t go, if he should take a 
notion to come up,” said George, but tlie command 
was wholly unnecessary, for Walter had instinctive¬ 
ly crept as far out as was safe and convenient. 
From their lofty positions tliey had a good view of 
their shaggy enemy, as he roamed at will over the 
island, picking up mouthful after mouthful of 
ehineapins, and occasionally glancing up, with ap¬ 
parent delight at his treed captives.—“ I think I 
seethe canoe away down at tlie bend,” said Wal- 
: ter. “I’m afraid we shall have to try swimming, 
or else remain here all night.”—“ I could never stem 
that current; besides we would both freeze to death 
in that cold water,” replied George, his teeth rat- 
1 tling, and liis very frame shivering as a cold, frosty 
; breeze c.ame roaring down the river gorge. “ But 
1 look!” he added quickly. “Look, he’s moving 
toward the tree ! ” — “ Wonder if we couldn’t scare 
him away?” asked Walter, and then began a series 
of shoos, etc., to all of which the bear paid no 
attention, and after walking around the tree two or 
three times, began very leisurely to ascend.— 
“ Let’s jump out and try the water !” yelled George. 
—“ That would break every bone in your body,” 
was the encouraging reply. 
The great brute, with no apparent effort, moved 
slowly up the leaning trunk, until he reached the 
main fork, in which he coolly squatted, and began 
to inspect, by alternate glances, his very much 
frightened prisoners. He did not seem inclined to 
quit the fork, but sat there quietly, every now and 
then inserting bis paw in a hollow limb, and then 
withdrawing and sucking it greedily.—“Honey,” 
said George, “ Honey. That’s what’s brought 
him out here. I have heard father say that a bear 
will go anywhere, or do anything for honey. Look 
at the bees he’s stirring out, and oh, what eyes !” 
—“ Between the bear, the bees, and the cold, we’ll 
die yet,” muttered Walter, between his chattering 
■ teeth.— “I believe,” said George, pointing down 
the river, “I believe I see a canoe coming this 
way.”—“I believe so myself,” replied Walter, 
glancing from the bear to the canoe, and then from 
the canoe to the bear. — “ Oh, Walt, I think it is 
Seeth ! ” exclaimed George, delighted at the pros¬ 
pect of being released. “ Oh, yes, I’m sure it’s 
Seeth ! ” — “Seeth, sure enough ! ” shouted Walter, 
clapping his hands, as that individual’s features 
gradually grew' into recognition. “ It’s Seeth, 
sure’s we’re living ! ”—“ Hurrah Seeth ! Come 
quick ! A bear ! A bear !” they both yelled, wav¬ 
ing their hats in order to attract his attention. 
Seeth was a good-natured negro, who, before the 
war, had belonged to George’s father. He had 
caught the canoe as it drifted by his cabin, and 
upon recognizing it as George’s, became greatly 
alarmed lest some accident had happened to him 
and Walter, and with this gloomy thought upper¬ 
most in his mind, began rapidly paddling up the 
river in search of them. Upon finding them in 
such a terrible predicament, he pushed hastily to 
the shoi'e and ran as fast as he w'as able for his gun 
and dogs. Although his cabin was at least half a 
mile away, he was not long in going to it and re¬ 
turning with his rifle, ammunition, and tw'o dogs. 
Throwing himself into the canoe, and calling in 
his dogs, he soon reached the island. 
“Be careful how you shoot, Seeth,’’ requested 
George, who recalled a painful instance of his 
markmanship of a few months before, when he 
fired at a crow on the pasture bars and killed a 
Jersey calf, standing several yards out of range. 
Tlie words were scarcely spoken when the roar 
of the powerfully charged weapon reverberated 
along the banks of the river without producing any 
apparent change in the position of the bear.— 
“ Whistled pretty close to my head that time,” 
said Walter, with considerable alarm. — “ Moon’s in 
de ram,” exclaimed Seeth, who believed firmly in 
all superstitions. “ Other times shoots as straight 
as any gun you ever seed. In de ram it shoots at 
least two feet outeu de way.”—“Then aim two 
feet the other side of him,” cautioned Walter, who, 
in his fright, seemed to have little, if any, consid¬ 
eration for the welfare of his cousin, who was on 
the side designated. In a minute the gun was 
again loaded and fired, and the great, black 
creature pitched headlong to the ground with a 
jarring thud, and was immediately pounced upon 
by the eager dogs. He was by no means dead 
when he alighted, and Seeth, in his desire to finish 
the work he had so clumsily-begun, and to assist 
his friends, the dogs, assaulted him with the butt 
of his rifle. One blow, and the whole scene 
changed. The hear, infuriated with pain, imme¬ 
diately turned upon his tormentor, and sent him 
flying around the island at a very rapid speed. 
Around and around the island he flew, scamper¬ 
ing over the rocks and through the bushes, with 
the bear and the dogs close at his heels, occa¬ 
sionally turning to deal a blow with his rifle, which 
he still managed to hold. “Run! run! Seeth!” 
shouted the boys, thoroughly alarmed for his 
safety. “Jump into the canoe and push off.” 
This command was obeyed, but no sooner had he 
taken up the paddle, than in fell the fighting bear 
and dogs, nearly on top of the poor negro, who lost 
no time in extricating himself and resuming his 
flight around the island’s circumference, every now 
and then mrittering something about the lack of 
space being unfit for such an encounter, and that 
he would prefer more territory the next time he 
might be so imprudent as to attack a bear.—“Hur¬ 
rah, the 3 ' have got him now ! stop Seeth, they have 
got him now ! ” but Seeth was cautious enough to 
put the diameter of the island between himself and 
the scene of conflict before concluding to come to 
a dead halt. The violent struggling of the bear 
and the dogs had overturned the canoe and thrown 
them into the water, where the bear, much weakened 
by the effects of his wound and fall, rapidly suc¬ 
cumbed to the vicious dogs, and George and 
Walter, wlio had now ventured from the tree, as¬ 
sisted by Seeth, somewhat recovered from his 
fright, after belaboring him lustily with clubs and 
stones until there was no signs of life, pulled him 
upon the island.—“Plumped him fair and square 
’twixt de eyes,” blew Seeth between his hurried 
breaths ; “ but it tuck him a powerful long time 
to ’ spire.” The bear was now dragged into the 
canoe, and all, including the dogs, were soon afloat. 
Considerable surprise was created at the Wheel- 
bin homestead by the arrival of the boys with 
proof of an adventure of entirely too serious a 
character to be passed over without causing some 
conjectures on the part of the older members 
of the family, as to what the consequences 
may have been. Early the following morning, 
Seeth made his appearance with his butcher-knife 
and skinned the bear, it being decided that he 
should have the flesh and Walter the hide, which, 
with great pride, he took to Richmond, and had an 
overcoat made of it, in which he had some photo¬ 
graphs taken, and sent one to George in commem¬ 
oration of their perilous encounter upon the island. 
A few weeks after SValter’s departure he received 
a letter from George, of which the following is a 
quotation; “Walt, what'do you think ? That 
bear wasn’t a real wild one at all, but belonged to 
an old fellow named Hermiter, who lives three or 
four miles up the river, and when he found out, 
after so long a time, that you, Seeth, and I had 
killed him, why, he just raised the biggest fuss you 
ever heard of, and Seeth, he’s nearly scared to death 
yet, but says there is no use in making any matter 
about it now, because he has eaten him nearly all 
up. Old Hermiter raised him from a little cub, 
and thought the world and all of him, but he 
managed somehow to escape from his pen and 
went to the island purposely for honey, so father 
thinks. It is very humiliating to be deprived of tlie 
honors I have congratulated myself upon winning 
in an encounter with a ferocious animal, by some 
one coming and convincing me beyond the least 
doubt, that he was as gentle and harmless as a kit¬ 
ten. Don’t you think so yourself? I have never 
told it before, but I have always thought it re¬ 
markably strange that a wild bear would deliber¬ 
ately climb a tree while two boys were up in it. 
No wonder father shook his head. I don’t expect 
you will so much appreciate your overcoat after 
reading this statement of the bare facts.” 
The Doctor’s Talks. 
In April last I told you something about the 
hatching of eggs of the toad and frog, and a little 
of my experience with hatching the eggs of the 
hen in an incubator the year before. This spring 
r ^ ^ 
Fig. 1. Fig. 2. 
I have had the incubator in operation again, and 
had much better success than before, probably 
having learned to imitate the old hen more closely. 
This time, too, I have been able to observe more 
of the changes that take place within the egg. In 
figure 1 in April Talks, was shown the egg as it ap¬ 
pears after the first two or three days in the incu¬ 
bator, or under the hen. Figure 1 here, shows the 
same, but the very beginning of the chick, given 
separately and magnified. A few days later the 
creature appears to be all head, as in figure 3, and 
Fig. 3. Fig. 4. 
locks as if it might turn out to be a serpent rather 
than a little chicken. Figure 3 gives the appear¬ 
ance in two or three more days, and it is only after 
ten or twelve days that we begin to make out any 
resemblance to a chick, as shown in figure 4. It 
can not be regarded as a very handsome bird, still 
we can see the beginning of the bill, the eye looks 
more like a chicken’s eye, while the projections 
that will be the wings, legs and tail, are plainly seen. 
Fig. 5.— THE CHICK EEADT TO PECK. 
By this time the bones have begun to form, and the 
chick grows so rapidly, that it soon quite fills the 
shell. Indeed, it has to be doubled up in order 
that it may be stowed (as the sailors say), in so 
small a space ; the head and feet are brought to¬ 
gether, and the chick, as in figure 5, is in a position 
that looks so uncomfortable, that you would think 
it would like to get out of it as soon as possible. 
But it can not come out until the twentv-first day, 
and it is most wonderful to observe how closely 
this time is observed bj’ the little prisoners. Many 
