inflicting further injuries. In many cases this is no doubt the case.
Few unwounded animals tear a dead body, except in the act of devouring
it. This stratagem must always be of doubtful efficacy, since beasts of
prey would generally be acute enough to detect it. The ruse, however,
may have been tried upon grizzlies with success; they are not brilliant
beasts, so far as can be discovered; but this device sometimes fails. A
hunter told the writer, over their camp-fire in the Sierra Nevada, of
his brother’s death, which he witnessed. They were shooting in those
mountains, and he was on a steep escarpment of rock, his companion
in the ravine beneath. A deer was roused and shot by the latter, when
a large bear rushed upon him, struck the rifle out of his hands, and
knocked him down, but without causing any serious injury. He said that
he dared not fire for fear of infuriating the animal, and shouted to
his brother to pretend to be dead. This was done; the beast walked
round him, smelt at his body, and finally lay down close beside it.
Suddenly he seized upon one of the arms and bit it savagely. The
unfortunate man probably could not control respiration sufficiently,
or there was some involuntary muscular movement. At all events, this
is what happened, and the pain caused him to start up with a loud cry,
upon which the bear rose erect, grasped him with his arms, and, in the
language of the narrator, “bit the top of his head off clean.”
Roosevelt relates that a neighbor of his, “out on a mining trip, was
prospecting with two other men near the head-water of the Little
Missouri, in the Black Hills country. They were walking down along
the river, and came to a point of land thrust out into it, which was
densely covered with brush and fallen timber. Two of the party walked
round by the edge of the stream; but the third, a German, and a very
powerful fellow, followed a well-beaten game trail leading through
the bushy point. When they were some forty yards apart, these two men
heard an agonized shout from the German, and at the same time the loud
coughing growl or roar of a bear. They turned just in time to see their
companion struck a terrible blow on the head by a grizzly, which must
have been roused from its lair by his almost stepping on it; so close
was it that he had no time to fire his rifle, but merely held it up
over his head as a guard. Of course it was struck down, the claws of
the great brute at the same time shattering his skull like an eggshell.
Yet the man staggered on some ten feet before he fell; but when he did,
he never spoke or moved again. The two others killed the bear after
a short, brisk struggle, as he was in the midst of a most determined
charge.”
Everybody makes an oversight sometimes, and although this accomplished
sportsman and careful writer is very free from the blemishes that
usually disfigure observers of wild beasts, there is a slip of the pen
here. How did he know this bear was not waiting for the man it killed?
Nobody saw it until in the act of striking, and why the brute “_must_
have been roused from its lair by his almost stepping upon it” does not
appear. There is at least a probability that its acute senses warned it
of the approach of a heavy man walking carelessly through brush, and of
two others tramping round the cover within forty yards.
The bear’s temper, disposition, and power of offence seem to be
underrated with respect to the species at large. Whether because its
appearance is less impressive than that of animals which have gathered
about them most of the world’s gossip, or for any other reason to
which this inappreciation may be attributed, both in Europe, Asia, and
America, the _Ursidæ_ in general have undoubtedly less reputation than
they seem to deserve, and less than the deeds they do and have done in
all countries would apparently have brought with them as a matter of
course. Poorly armed and primitive populations throughout the earth
think differently, however, about them. In the folk-lore of Europe
and Asia this creature is conspicuous. The great hunters write of it
in a respectful strain. No man who ever stood before an enraged bear
thought lightly of its prowess. A host of well-known names are appended
to statements concerning destructive arctoids in the Scandinavian
Mountains and the Pyrenees, in the Himalayas and Caucasus, the
highlands of Central India, and the forests and plains north and south
of “the stony girdle of the world.”
There is every reason why this beast should be formidable wherever
it has not encountered modern weapons; and that it is so its whole
literature attests. Richardson’s name (“Fauna Boreali Americana”),
_Ursus ferox_, translates his own experiences and those of native
tribes. Colonel Pollock (“Natural History Notes”) asserts that “in
Assam bears are far more destructive to human life than tigers,” and
more than one authoritative statement to the same effect has been
made concerning those of India. It happens curiously that the ancient
documents of China preserve the descriptive title which has been
conferred upon the great bear of America. In Dr. Legge’s edition of the
Chinese Classics, the Bamboo Books have a note appended by some native
scholiast to Part I., relating to the reign of Hwang-te, in which his
general Ying-lung, while fighting against Ch’e-yew, is said to have
been assisted by “tigers, panthers, bears, and _gristly (grizzly)
bears_.”
The grizzly is so difficult to kill that he has the reputation of being
nearly invulnerable. It is quite true that the species possesses great
tenacity of life, and that in extremity the animal is capable of
doing extreme injury. “One of the most complete wrecks of humanity I
ever saw,” says Colonel Dodge, “was a man who had shot a grizzly bear
through the head. Both were found dead together.” Roosevelt killed one
with a single shot. Following his trail among the Bighorn Mountains, he
and his companion, while “in the middle of a thicket, crossed what was
almost a breastwork of fallen logs, and Merrifield, who was leading,
passed by the upright stem of a great pine. As soon as he was by it, he
sank suddenly on one knee, turning half round, his face fairly aflame
with excitement; and as I strode past him with my rifle at the ready,
there was the great bear slowly rising from his bed among the young
spruces. He had heard us ... though we advanced with noiseless caution,
... but apparently hardly knew exactly where or what we were, for he
reared up on his haunches sideways to us. Then he saw us and dropped
down again on all fours, the shaggy hair on his neck and shoulders
seeming to bristle as he turned toward us. As he sank down on his fore
feet, I raised the rifle; his head was slightly bent down, and when I
saw the top of the white bead fairly between his small, glittering,
evil eyes, I pulled trigger. Half rising up, the huge beast fell over
on his side in the death throes, the ball having gone into his brain.”
Generally it is not so soon over. Captain Lewis mentions a case in
which one did not succumb until eight balls went through its lungs, and
several into other parts of the body. This officer also relates that
one of his party was pursued for half a mile by a grizzly he had shot
through the lungs, and which it finally took eight men to kill. Lewis
said he would “rather encounter two Indians than one grizzly bear.”
On the other hand, this powerful and ferocious creature may
occasionally be destroyed or beaten off with seemingly inadequate
means. Single Indians sometimes killed it; white hunters with
“pea-rifles” often; and Roosevelt reports that he had a stallion that
disabled one by a kick in the head. A similar account is given by
Colonel Davidson (“Travels in Upper India”) of an incurably vicious
English thoroughbred at Lucknow, which fractured a tiger’s skull when
condemned to be devoured by this beast. Major Leveson, who had met most
species of _Ursidæ_, regarded the grizzly as “by far the largest and
most formidable of his race, ... one of the most dangerous antagonists
a hunter can meet with.” But he knew that weapons before which the
black rhinoceros and African elephant are powerless, prove too much
for this animal also, and therefore refers “the numerous accidents
that have occurred in hunting the grizzly to insufficiency of weight
in the projectiles generally used.” If the hunter be “armed with a
large-bore breech-loading rifle, and keep his wits about him,” he has
the advantage, barring accident. But even then, “should the bear not
be shot through the brain or heart, unless his assailant maintain his
presence of mind, and put in his second barrel well and quickly, the
chances are that the latter will come to grief, if his comrades fail to
come to the rescue.”
Leveson relates the following experience of his own: “We were encamped
on the Wind River ... when at daybreak one dreary morning a cry of
alarm rang through camp, and I was awakened by our people hurrying
to and fro in noisy confusion.... As I drew near to the clump of red
cedars whence the sound of firearms issued ... one of the half-breeds
came running back and informed me that the row was occasioned by a
grizzly, that had tried to carry off one of the baggage ponies, but had
been driven off by the guard, who fired at him, and that in revenge he
had carried off an Indian boy who had charge of the dogs. Guided by the
shouting, which still continued, and accompanied by Pierre, who carried
a second gun, I entered the copse and found a big grizzly evidently
master of the situation; for although three or four of our Blackfoot
scouts were halloaing around him, he did not appear to mind them, but
confined his attentions to Crib, a bull-terrier, that pluckily kept
him at bay by dancing about all round him, without risking a mauling
by getting within striking reach of his claws. I was mounted on a
thoroughly broken Indian mustang ... and rode pretty close up before I
saw that the boy was lying on the ground apparently so badly hurt as to
be insensible, while the faithful old dog was doing what he could to
protect him by harassing his huge antagonist.
“On my riding up to about twenty yards’ distance, ‘Old Ephraim’ raised
himself on his hind legs, and cocked his head knowingly on one side,
as if he were going to make a rush. Whilst he was in this attitude,
his brawny chest being fully exposed, I gave him the contents of both
barrels almost simultaneously, which rolled him over on his back, where
he made several convulsive movements with his paws.... Dismounting, I
took my second gun from Pierre, and gave him the coup de gràce behind
the ear, when, with a peculiarly melancholy, whining moan, he stretched
out his great limbs and breathed his last.”
The boy, though wounded, was feigning death and escaped, but it must
be admitted that the ruse was tried under exceptionally favorable
circumstances. “Many and many a spirit-stirring yarn,” says Leveson,
“have I heard related by hunters, around the watch-fire, of their
encounters with the much-dreaded grizzly.” Bear stories are greatly
alike, he adds, and concludes his description by saying, in much the
same way as Colonel Dodge (“The Black Hills”), “from my own experience,
I should always give ‘Old Ephraim’ a wide berth if I were not armed
with a thoroughly serviceable breech-loading rifle throwing a large
ball.”
The annals of hunting preserve the name of no greater or more
adventurous sportsman than he who gives this opinion. It is one which
every one who has encountered the grizzly bear will agree to, and it
might also have been arrived at from studying the literature of this
subject alone.
Norwood Press:
J. S. Cushing & Co.--Berwick & Smith.
Boston, Mass., U.S.A.
Transcriber’s Notes
Punctuation, hyphenation, and spelling were made consistent when a
predominant preference was found in the original book; otherwise they
were not changed.
Transcribers corrected several spelling and accent errors in French.
Simple typographical errors were corrected; unbalanced quotation
marks were remedied when the change was obvious, and otherwise left
unbalanced.
Text refers to Colonel “Delgorgue” but the correct spelling is
“Delegorgue.”