] 53 TRAVELS THROUGH LOWER CANADA : 
gether in sufficient numbers to pursue their 
game in this manner; but whenever they 
have men enough to divide themselves so, 
they always do it. We proceeded in this 
manner at Point Abincau, where three or four 
men are amply sufficient to hem in a bear 
between the wafer and the main land. The 
point was a very favourable place for hunt¬ 
ing this year, for the bears intent, as I be¬ 
fore mentioned, upon emigrating to the south, 
used, on coming down from the upper country, 
to advance to the extreme end of the point, as 
if desirous of getting as near as possible by 
land to the opposite side of the lake, and 
scarcely a morning came but what one or two 
of them were found upon it. An experienced 
hunter can at once discern the track of a bear, 
deer, or any other large animal, in the woods, 
and can tell with no small degree of precision 
how long a time before, it was, that the ani¬ 
mal passed that way. On coming to a long 
vallev, between two of the sand hills on the 
point, a place through which the bears gene¬ 
rally passed in going towards the water, the. 
hunters whom I accompanied at once told how 
many bears had come down from the upper 
country the preceding night, and also how 
many of them were cubs. To the eye of a 
common observer the track of these animals 
amongst the leaves is wholly imperceptible; 
