BEAR HUNTING. 
285 
Now, I believe, they are becoming scarce, and are rarely or 
never hunted, though of course they are dealt with summarily, 
if encountered while in pursuit of humbler game. The same 
may be said of the Wolf, the Wild-Cat, and the Cougar, or 
Panther ; all of which are occasionally hunted with hounds, and 
none of which ever receive grace or law, if encountered in the 
woods or on the prairie, but which are not in anj sort to be 
regarded as game, and which are never, I might almost say, 
hunted in form and of malice prepense. 
Not so the Grizzly Bear —Ursus Horribilis —which is to 
America, what the Lion is to Southern Africa, and the Tiger to 
Bengal, the fiercest and most terrible of all its quadrupeds ; and 
probably in fierceness, cruelty, and wanton thirst of blood, more 
to be dreaded than either of the Royal Cats, which despite all 
that has been said of them, are but sneaking varmints after all, 
which would rather run than fight any day, unless, when very 
sorely pressed by famine, or pinned in a corner. The Grizzly 
Bear, however, has not the least idea of running, unless it be at 
you ; in which direction he persists with so much tenacity that it 
is not very easy to say what will stop him—being kilt, as an Irish¬ 
man understands the word, has no effect on him whatever, as is 
proved by the fact recorded by those adventurous and veracious 
travellers, Captains Lewis and Clarke, the first explorers of the 
haunts of this pleasing gentleman, who state that one individual 
of this race, which measured above eight feet in length and five 
in girth, swam half a mile, and lived half an hour, or thereabout, 
after being shot five times through the lungs, and receiving five 
other wounds, any of which, in ordinary animals, would be 
deemed mortal. 
The Grizzly Bear has been known to fight desperately after 
being shot through the cavity of the heart; and the only cer¬ 
tain death-wound that can be inflicted on him is by a bullet 
through the brain, which, from the peculiar form of the scull, 
the shape of the muscles which protect it, and the extreme 
hardness of the bone, it is almost impossible to send to this 
mark. In like manner, the thickness of his hide and the shag- 
