A Bear Lugging a Clog. 
Editor Forest and Stream: 
In the article on “Fooling a Bear,” by 
Shaganoss, he tells of a bear carrying a clog 
under his arm, and says: “Ordinarily I would 
regard such a story as impossible, but I have 
seen enough of animal life to admit that the 
‘impossible’ is what sometimes comes to pass.” 
This is not only not impossible, but I have 
had several hunters, whose word could be re¬ 
lied upon, tell me of bears they had trapped 
carrying the clog under their arms when tired 
of dragging it And I myself have had one do 
it when he first started from the place where 
he was trapped. 
In the fall of 1858 I was trapping in the 
Caucongomoc country. We had a trap set for 
a bear on one of our sable lines which ran about 
northwest from near the head of the lake. It 
was set on a shelf of flat land some twenty or 
thirty yards wide, where a rocky ledge rose on 
one side and the open ledge beneath the shelf 
cropped out on the other and broke squarely 
down for twenty feet or more. There were 
some large beech trees on the shelf which the 
bears had climbed earlier in the season for 
nuts. We set where the shelf narrowed in from 
the sloping open land beyond. The trap was 
devised onto a solid rock maple clog eight feet 
long and four inches through at the small end. 
I copy the measurements from my journal of 
the trip. 
On looking at the trap, I found a plain trail 
for a few yards until it came to the open ledge. 
Here I could trace it by the scratches on the 
smooth ledge clear to the edge, where it broke 
off in a perpendicular drop of twenty feet. The 
carpet of fallen beech leaves below showed no 
signs of his having dragged the trap away. I 
went over the trail several times, the only re¬ 
sult being that the bear had come to the very 
edge of the cliff, and after that, had left no 
more sign than if he had flown. 
As all the conclusion 1 could come to was that 
the bear had walked off on his hind feet, carrying 
the clog, and as it was not possible for him to 
climb the steep rocks back of him without leav¬ 
ing a trail, I went round and down on the 
sloping land below and began to take long 
half-moons back and forth, hoping to intersect 
his trail when he should begin to drag the 
clog. 
I had gone what in a straight line might be 
a hundred yards, when I struck the trail as 
plain as if a horse had dragged a plow. I fol¬ 
lowed it for a few rods, when it again disap¬ 
peared. There was not the least trace. Fol¬ 
lowing in the direction where the trail pointed, 
I soon saw him some 80 or 100 yards away, as 
the growth was very open. He was sitting per¬ 
fectly still watching me. As soon as he saw 
that I had seen him he gave a loud waugh! and 
started for me, the chain clanking and the trap 
and clog making a great noise on the beech 
leaves. 
As my gun, which was double-barreled, one 
barrel rifle, had not been fired for some days, 
I was not sure of its going, so I stood and be¬ 
gan to draw the shot charge, intending to re¬ 
load with a smooth-bore ball, which I carried 
for emergencies. As I did not run, he only 
came a few yards and reared up with a loud 
waugh! making the splinters fly out of a beech. 
Then he started toward me again, but only came 
a few yards, when he again gave a waugh! and 
tore another tree. Flis idea evidently was to 
shake my nerves, so that I would retreat. See¬ 
ing that his bluff failed, he sprang into a large 
beech, carrying trap and clog clear from the 
ground at the first spring. He climbed up 
twenty or thirty feet and swung the clog back 
and forth by the chain between it and the trap, 
just as a person can swing a whip-stock round 
by holding the lash. He kept the tree between 
me and him and put his head out one side just 
as a woodpecker will and waugh! at me. After 
a bullet broke his neck, I paced the distance, 
thirty-five long paces. He was a very large 
bear, but I do not think I had any reason to 
fear him, as he was only putting up the bluff 
which trapped bears often do-. 
This bear did not carry the clog, because his 
foot was sore, or he was tired of dragging it, 
but went out on this bare ledge to throw me 
off the track, and began to carry the clog with¬ 
in a few rods of where he was trapped. He 
carried it at least 100 yards before he laid it 
down. We caught two others that fall, but they 
dragged the clog until they “hitched up,” just 
as well behaved bears usually do. 
Manly Hardy. 
To Study Southern Forests. 
An important step in the general movement 
to bring many of the rich stands of timber in 
the South under a scientific plan of forest man¬ 
agement is the offer made by the school of for¬ 
estry of the University of Georgia at Athens, 
Ga., to furnish timber owners experts who will 
examine and report upon any of the forests in 
the State. 
The object of the offer is to collect informa¬ 
tion in regard to the forest resources of the 
State, to spread a knowledge of forestry, and 
to improve forest conditions. The forest school 
will furnish the experts free, and the only ex¬ 
pense which will be borne by the forest owner 
will be paid for the traveling and subsistence 
expenses of the expert while making the exami¬ 
nation. In cases where several owners of the 
same locality apply the expenses will be pro¬ 
rated. 
When applications for examination are made 
the owners have been asked to give their names 
and post office addresses, location of tract, area 
of tract, character of forest as shown by the 
kinds of trees growing on the land, the condi¬ 
tions of the forest, whether mature, original or 
second growth, whether the land has been burned 
or cut over, and the wishes of the owner re¬ 
garding the use of the land. 
The Soaring of Birds. 
Fountain City, Ind., June 4.— Editor Forest 
and Stream: The following theory of the soar¬ 
ing of birds, recently given by Wright Brothers 
in a magazine article, may be of interest to 
those who like myself have watched the soar¬ 
ing of hawks and buzzards many a time and 
wondered how they did it without flapping their 
wings and yet rose thousands of feet. 
“A bird is really an aeroplane. The portions 
of its wings near the body are used as planes 
of support, while the more flexible parts, when 
flapped, act as propellers. Some of the soaring 
birds are not much more than animated sailing 
machines. A buzzard can be safely kept in an 
open pen thirty feet across and ten feet high. 
He cannot fly out Qf it; in fact, we know from 
observation made by ourselves that he cannot 
fly for any distance up a grade of one to six. 
Yet these birds, sailing through the air, are 
among the commonest sights through a great 
section of the country. Everyone who has been 
outdoors has seen a buzzard or a hawk soar¬ 
ing; everyone who has been to sea has seen 
the gulls sailing after a steamship for hundreds 
of miles with scarcely a movement of the wings. 
All these birds are doing the same thing; they 
are balancing on rising currents of air. The 
buzzards and hawks find the currents blowing 
upward off the land; the gulls that follow the 
steamship from New York to Florida are merely 
sliding down hill a thousand miles on rising 
currents in the wake of the steamer, in the at¬ 
mosphere and on the hot air rising from the 
smokestacks. On a clear, warm day the buz- 
zard.s find the high, rotary rising currents of 
air and go sailing round and round in them. 
On damp, windy days they hang above the edge 
of a steep hill on the air which comes rising 
up its slope. From their position in the air they 
can glide down at will.” 
So far as the writer knows, this is the only 
theory that explains with any satisfaction how 
birds rise thousands of feet without a single 
flap of their wings. It seems plain enough that 
an upward wind would raise the bird, and that 
by properly slanting the surface of the wings 
the bird can sail in any direction, and there is 
no doubt a proper inclination of the wings that 
would keep the bird in a stationary position. 
The theory equally well explains that the bird 
can be raised by a wind that blows upward with 
a slant. Any upward movement of the wind 
sufficiently strong will raise the bird, regard¬ 
less of what the lateral movement of the wing 
may be, and the sailing of the bird in any direc¬ 
tion is merely getting the proper balance be¬ 
tween the power of gravity and the power of 
the wind. 
With an upward slanting wind it seems pos¬ 
sible for the bird to sail against the wind and 
maintain its height. We know that in a still 
air the bird can easily sail in a down slanting 
direction, and that it can do this against the 
wind, but in an upward slanting wind the lift 
of the wind amounts to the same thing as the 
