Illustrative Anecdotes of the Animal Kingdom

It would appear that, in the remote regions of the United States, the common black bear is occasionally found of a cinnamon color, and sometimes even white. Tanner gives us the following account: "Shortly after this, I killed an old she-bear, which was perfectly white. She had four cubs; one white, with red eyes and red nails, like herself; one red, and two black. In size, and other respects, she was the same as the common black bear; but she had nothing black about her but the skin of her lips. The fur of this kind is very fine, but not so highly valued by the traders as the red. The old one was very tame, and I shot her without difficulty; two of the young ones I shot in the hole, and two escaped into a tree.

"I had but just shot them when there came along three men, attracted, probably, by the sound of my gun. As these men were very hungry, I took them home with me, fed them, and gave them each a piece of meat, to carry home. Next day, I chased another bear into a low poplar-tree; but my gun being a poor one, I could not shoot him.

"A few days after, as I was hunting, I started, at the same moment, an elk and three young bears; the latter ran into a tree. I shot at the young bears, and two of them fell. As I thought one or both must only be wounded, I sprang towards the root of the tree, but had scarcely reached it when I saw the old she-bear coming in another direction. She caught up the cub which had fallen near her, and, raising it with her paws, while she stood on her hind feet, holding it as a woman holds a child, she looked at it for a moment, smelled the ball-hole, which was in its belly, and perceiving it was dead, dashed it down, and came directly towards me, gnashing her teeth, and walking so erect that her head stood as high as mine. All this was so sudden, that I scarce reloaded my gun, having only time to raise it, and fire, as she came within reach of the muzzle. I was now made to feel the necessity of a lesson the Indians had taught me, and which I very rarely neglected – that is, to think of nothing else before loading it again."

Some years ago, a boy, of New Hampshire, found a very young cub, near Lake Winnipeg, and carried it home with him. It was fed and brought up about the house of the boy's father, and became as tame as a dog.

Every day its youthful captor had to go to school at some distance, and, by degrees, the bear became his daily companion. At first, the other scholars were shy of the creature's acquaintance; but, ere long, it became their regular playfellow, and they delighted in sharing with it the little store of provisions which they brought, for their sustenance, in small bags. After two years of civilization, however, the bear wandered to the woods, and did not return. Search was made for him, but in vain.

Four succeeding years passed away, and, in the interval, changes had occurred in the school alluded to. An old dame had succeeded to the ancient master, and a new generation of pupils had taken the place of the former ones. One very cold, winter day, while the schoolmistress was busy with her humble lessons, a boy chanced to leave the door half way open, on his entrance, and, suddenly, a large bear walked in.

The consternation of the old lady, and her boys and girls, was unspeakable. Both schoolmistress and pupils would fain have been abroad; but the bear was in the path, and all that could be done was to fly off, as far as possible, behind the tables and benches. But the bear troubled nobody. He walked quietly up to the fireplace, and warmed himself, exhibiting much satisfaction in his countenance during the process.

He remained thus about a quarter of an hour, and then walked up to the wall where the provender bags and baskets of the pupils were suspended. Standing on his hind feet, he took hold of these successively, put his paws into them, and made free with the bread, fruit, and other eatables, therein contained. He next tried the schoolmistress's desk, where some little provisions usually were; but finding it firmly shut, he went up again to the fire, and, after a few minutes' stay before it, he walked out by the way he came in.

As soon as the schoolmistress and her pupils had courage to move, the alarm was given to the neighbors. Several young men immediately started after the bear, and, as its track was perfectly visible upon the snow, they soon came up with it, and killed it. Then it was that, by certain marks upon its skin, some of the pursuers recognized, in the poor bear, no enemy, but an old friend of their own recent school days. Great regret was felt at the loss of the creature. It was like killing a human friend rather than a wild animal.

Landor furnishes us with the following account: A man in Sweden set off one morning to shoot the cock of the woods. This bird is so extremely shy, that he may rarely be met with, except in the pairing season, when, every morning, he renews his song. He usually commences just before sunrise, beginning in a loud strain, which gradually sinks into a low key, until he is quite entranced with his own melody; he then droops his wings to the earth, and runs to the distance of several feet, calling, Cluck, cluck, cluck! during which time, he is said to be incapable of seeing, so wrapped up is he in his own contemplations, and may be caught even with the hand by those who are near enough, as the fit lasts only a few moments. If unready, wait for the next occasion; for, should he advance a step, except when the bird is thus insensible, he will certainly be overheard, and the victim escape.

The man I began to speak of, being, early one morning, in pursuit of this bird, heard his song at a short distance, and, as soon as the clucking commenced, of course advanced as rapidly as he could, and then remained motionless, till these particular notes were again sounded. It was quite dusk, the sun not having yet risen; but the song seemed to come from an open space in the forest, from which the sun was just emerging. He could not see many yards before him, and only followed the direction of the sound. It so happened that, from another point, but at no great distance, a bear was advancing on the bird, just in the manner of, and with the same steps as the man.

The hunter, whilst standing motionless, thought he perceived a dark object on one side of him; but it did not much engage his attention; at the usual note, he moved on toward the game, but was surprised to see that the black object had also advanced in an equal degree, and now stood on a line with him. Still he was so eager after the bird, that he could think of nothing else, and approached close to his prey before he perceived that a large bear stood within a few feet of him; in fact, just as they were about to spring on the bird, they caught sight of one another, and each thought proper to slink back. After having retreated a short distance, the man began to think it would be rather inglorious to yield the prize without a struggle; and there being now more light, he returned to the spot, when it appeared that the bear had also taken the same resolution, and was actually advancing over the same open space I have mentioned, growling, and tearing up the grass with her feet. Though the man had only shot in his gun, he fired without hesitation, and immediately took to his heels and fled, conceiving the bear to be close in his rear, and returned not to pause till he gained his own habitation. Having armed himself anew, and taken a companion with him, he again repaired to the spot, where he found the bear lying dead on the ground, some of the shots having entered her heart.

The American black bear lives a solitary life in forests and uncultivated deserts, and subsists on fruits, and on the young shoots and roots of vegetables. Of honey he is exceedingly fond, and, as he is a most expert climber, he scales the loftiest trees in search of it. Fish, too, he delights in, and is often found in quest of them, on the borders of lakes and on the sea-shore. When these resources fail, he will attack small quadrupeds, and even animals of some magnitude. As, indeed, is usual in such cases, the love of flesh, in him, grows with the use of it.

As the fur is of some value, the Indians are assiduous in the chase of the creature which produces it. "About the end of December, from the abundance of fruits they find in Louisiana and the neighboring countries, the bears become so fat and lazy that they can scarcely run. At this time they are hunted by the Indians. The nature of the chase is generally this: the bear chiefly adopts, for his retreat, the hollow trunk of an old cypress-tree, which he climbs, and then descends into the cavity from above. The hunter, whose business it is to watch him into this retreat, climbs a neighboring tree, and seats himself opposite to the hole. In one hand he holds his gun, and in the other a torch, which he darts into the cavity. Frantic with rage and terror, the bear makes a spring from his station; but the hunter seizes the instant of his appearance, and shoots him.

"The pursuit of the bear is a matter of the first importance to some of the Indian tribes, and is never undertaken without much ceremony. A principal warrior gives a general invitation to all the hunters. This is followed by a strict fast of eight days, in which they totally abstain from food, but during which the day is passed in continual song. This is done to invoke the spirits of the woods to direct the hunters to the places where there are abundance of bears. They even cut the flesh in divers parts of their bodies, to render the spirits more propitious. They also address themselves to the manes of the beasts slain in the preceding chases, and implore these to direct them, in their dreams, to an abundance of game. The chief of the hunt now gives a great feast, at which no one dares to appear without first bathing. At this entertainment, contrary to their usual custom, they eat with great moderation. The master of the feast touches nothing, but is employed in relating to the guests ancient tales of feasts in former chases; and fresh invocations to the manes of the deceased bears conclude the whole.

"They then sally forth, equipped as if for war, and painted black. They proceed on their way in a direct line, not allowing rivers, marshes, or any other impediment, to stop their course, and driving before them all the beasts they find. When they arrive at the hunting-ground, they surround as large a space as they can, and then contract their circle, searching, at the same time, every hollow tree, and every place capable of being the retreat of a bear; and they continue the same practice till the chase is expired.

"As soon as a bear is killed, a hunter puts into his mouth a lighted pipe of tobacco, and, blowing into it, fills the throat with the smoke, conjuring the spirit of the animal not to resent what they are about to do to its body, or to render their future chases unsuccessful. As the beast makes no reply, they cut out the string of the tongue, and throw it into the fire. If it crackle and shrivel up, which it is almost sure to do, they accept this as a good omen; if not, they consider that the spirit of the beast is not appeased, and that the chase of the next year will be unfortunate."

When our forefathers first settled in America, bears were common in all parts of the country along the Atlantic. Many adventures with them took place, some of which are recorded in the histories of the times. The following is said to have occurred at a later period: —

Some years since, when the western part of New York was in a state of nature, and wolves and bears were not afraid of being seen, some enterprising pilgrim had erected, and put in operation, a sawmill, on the banks of the Genesee. One day, as he was sitting on the log, eating his bread and cheese, a large, black bear came from the woods towards the mill. The man, leaving his luncheon on the log, made a spring, and seated himself on a beam above; when the bear, mounting the log, sat down with his rump towards the saw, which was in operation, and commenced satisfying his appetite on the man's dinner. After a little while, the saw progressed enough to interfere with the hair on bruin's back, and he hitched along a little, and kept on eating. Again the saw came up, and scratched a little flesh. The bear then whirled about, and, throwing his paws around the saw, held on, till he was mangled through and through, when he rolled off, fell through into the flood, and bled to death.

The Grisly Bear. – This creature, which is peculiar to North America, is, perhaps, the most formidable of the bruin family in magnitude and ferocity. He averages twice the bulk of the black bear, to which, however, he bears some resemblance in his slightly elevated forehead, and narrow, flattened, elongated muzzle. His canine teeth are of great size and power. The feet are enormously large – the breadth of the fore foot exceeding nine inches, and the length of the hind foot, exclusive of the talons, being eleven inches and three quarters, and its breadth seven inches. The talons sometimes measure more than six inches. He is, accordingly, admirably adapted for digging up the ground, but is unable to climb trees, in which latter respect he differs wholly from most other species. The color of his hair varies to almost an indefinite extent, between all the intermediate shades of a light gray and a black brown; the latter tinge, however, being that which predominates. It is always in some degree grizzled, by intermixture of grayish hairs. The hair itself is, in general, longer, finer, and more exuberant, than that of the black bear.

The neighborhood of the Rocky Mountains is one of the principal haunts of this animal. There, amidst wooded plains, and tangled copses of bough and underwood, he reigns as much the monarch as the lion is of the sandy wastes of Africa. Even the bison cannot withstand his attacks. Such is his muscular strength, that he will drag the ponderous carcass of the animal to a convenient spot, where he digs a pit for its reception. The Indians regard him with the utmost terror. His extreme tenacity of life renders him still more dangerous; for he can endure repeated wounds which would be instantaneously mortal to other beasts, and, in that state, can rapidly pursue his enemy; so that the hunter who fails to shoot him through the brain is placed in a most perilous situation.

One evening, the men in the hindmost of one of Lewis and Clark's canoes perceived one of these bears lying in the open ground, about three hundred paces from the river; and six of them, who were all good hunters, went to attack him. Concealing themselves by a small eminence, they were able to approach within forty paces unperceived; four of the hunters now fired, and each lodged a ball in his body, two of which passed directly through the lungs. The bear sprang up, and ran furiously, with open mouth, upon them; two of the hunters, who had reserved their fire, gave him two additional wounds, and one, breaking his shoulder-blade, somewhat retarded his motions. Before they could again load their guns, he came so close on them, that they were obliged to run towards the river, and before they had gained it, the bear had almost overtaken them. Two men jumped into the canoe; the other four separated, and, concealing themselves among the willows, fired as fast as they could load their pieces. Several times the bear was struck, but each shot seemed only to direct his fury towards the hunters; at last he pursued them so closely that they threw aside their guns and pouches, and jumped from a perpendicular bank, twenty feet high, into the river. The bear sprang after them, and was very near the hindmost man, when one of the hunters on the shore shot him through the head, and finally killed him. When they dragged him on shore, they found that eight balls had passed through his body in different directions.

Richardson relates the following story of a grisly bear. A party of voyagers, who had been employed all day in tracking a canoe up the Saskatchewan, had seated themselves, in the twilight, by a fire, and were busy in preparing their supper, when a large grisly bear sprang over their canoe that was behind them, and, seizing one of the party by the shoulder, carried him off. The rest fled in terror, with the exception of a man named Bourasso, who, grasping his gun, followed the bear as it was retreating leisurely with its prey. He called to his unfortunate comrade that he was afraid of hitting him if he fired at the bear; but the latter entreated him to fire immediately, as the animal was squeezing him to death. On this he took a deliberate aim, and discharged his piece into the body of the bear, which instantly dropped its prey to pursue Bourasso. He escaped with difficulty, and the bear retreated to a thicket, where it is supposed to have died. The man who was rescued had his arm fractured, and was otherwise severely bitten by the bear, but finally recovered.

The White Bear. – The polar bear is considerably larger than the brown or black bear, and is covered with a long, thick fur, of a bright white beneath and of a yellowish tinge above. Besides the difference in external appearance, there is a remarkable distinction between the brown and the polar bears; for the former prefers, as his abode, the wooded summits of alpine regions, feeding principally on roots and vegetables; while the latter fixes his residence on the sea-coast, or on an iceberg, and seems to delight in the stormy and inhospitable precincts of the arctic circle, where vegetation is scarcely known to exist, feeding entirely on animal matter. But it cannot be regarded as a predatory quadruped, for it seems to prefer dead to living animal food, its principal subsistence being the floating carcasses of whales. It also preys upon seals, which it catches with much keenness and certainty, as they ascend to the surface of the ocean to breathe; and sometimes fish are caught by them, when they enter shoals or gulfs. They move with great dexterity in the water, and capture their prey with apparent ease. It is only when these bears quit their winter quarters, and especially when the female has to protect her young, that they manifest great ferocity.

While the Carcass, one of the ships of Captain Phipps's voyage of discovery to the north pole, was locked in the ice, early one morning the man at the mast-head gave notice that three bears were making their way very fast over the Frozen Ocean, and were directing their course towards the ship. They had no doubt been invited by the scent of some blubber of a sea-horse, which the crew had killed a few days before, and which, having been set on fire, was burning on the ice at the time of their approach. They proved to be a she-bear and her two cubs; but the cubs were nearly as large as the dam. They ran eagerly to the fire, and drew out from the flames part of the flesh of the sea-horse that remained unconsumed, and ate it voraciously.

The crew of the ship threw great lumps of the flesh they had still left upon the ice, which the old bear fetched away singly, laying every piece before the cubs as she brought it, and, dividing it, gave each a share, reserving but a small portion to herself. As she was fetching away the last piece, they levelled their muskets at the cubs, and shot them both dead, at the same time wounding the dam in her retreat, but not mortally. It would have drawn tears of pity from any but the most unfeeling, to have marked the affectionate concern expressed by this poor animal, in the dying moments of her expiring young. Though she was sorely wounded, and could but just crawl to the place where they lay, she carried the lump of flesh she had just fetched away, as she had done the others, tore it in pieces, and laid it down before them. When she saw they refused to eat, she laid her paws first upon the one, then upon the other, and endeavored to raise them up, making, at the same time, the most pitiable moans.

Finding she could not stir them, she went off, and, when she had got to some distance, looked back, and moaned; and that not availing to entice them away, she returned, and, smelling round them, began to lick their wounds. She went off a second time, as before, and having crawled a few paces, looked again behind her, and for some time stood moaning. But still her cubs not rising to follow, she returned to them anew, and, with signs of inexpressible fondness, went round, pawing them successively. Finding, at last, that they were cold and lifeless, she raised her head towards the ship, and growled a curse upon the destroyers, which they returned with a volley of musket-balls. She fell between her cubs, and died licking their wounds.

The polar bears are remarkably sagacious, as the following instances may prove. Those in Kamtschatka are said to have recourse to a singular stratagem, in order to catch the bareins, which are much too swift of foot for them. These animals keep together in large herds; they frequent mostly the low grounds, and love to browse at the base of rocks and precipices. The bear hunts them by scent, till he comes in sight, when he advances warily, keeping above them, and concealing himself among the rocks, as he makes his approach, till he gets immediately over them, and near enough for his purpose. He then begins to push down, with his paws, pieces of rock among the herd below. This manœuvre is not followed by any attempt to pursue, until he finds he has maimed one of the flock, upon which a course immediately ensues, that proves successful, or otherwise, according to the hurt the barein has received.

The captain of a Greenland whaler, being anxious to procure a bear without injuring the skin, made trial of a stratagem of laying the noose of a rope in the snow, and placing a piece of kreng within it. A bear, ranging the neighboring ice, was soon enticed to the spot by the smell of burning meat. He perceived the bait, approached, and seized it in his mouth; but his foot, at the same time, by a jerk of the rope, being entangled in the noose, he pushed it off with his paw, and deliberately retired. After having eaten the piece he had carried away with him, he returned. The noose, with another piece of kreng, having been replaced, he pushed the rope aside, and again walked triumphantly off with the bait. A third time the noose was laid; but, excited to caution by the evident observations of the bear, the sailors buried the rope beneath the snow, and laid the bait in a deep hole dug in the centre. The animal once more approached, and the sailors were assured of their success. But bruin, more sagacious than they expected, after snuffing about the place for a few moments, scraped the snow away with his paw, threw the rope aside, and again escaped unhurt with his prize.

A Greenland bear, with two cubs under her protection, was pursued across a field of ice by a party of armed sailors. At first, she seemed to urge the young ones to an increase of speed, by running before them, turning round, and manifesting, by a peculiar action and voice, her anxiety for their progress; but, finding her pursuers gaining upon them, she carried, or pushed, or pitched them alternately forward, until she effected their escape. In throwing them before her, the little creatures are said to have placed themselves across her path to receive the impulse, and, when projected some yards in advance, they ran onwards, until she overtook them, when they alternately adjusted themselves for another throw.

In the month of June, 1812, a female bear, with two cubs, approached near a whale ship, and was shot. The cubs, not attempting to escape, were taken alive. These animals, though at first very unhappy, became, at length, in some measure reconciled to their situation, and, being tolerably tame, were allowed occasionally to go at large about the deck. While the ship was moored to a floe, a few days after they were taken, one of them, having a rope fastened round his neck, was thrown overboard. It immediately swam to the ice, got upon it, and attempted to escape. Finding itself, however, detained by the rope, it endeavored to disengage itself in the following ingenious way: Near the edge of the floe was a crack in the ice, of considerable length, but only eighteen inches or two feet wide, and three or four feet deep. To this spot the bear turned, and when, on crossing the chasm, the bight of the rope fell into it, he placed himself across the opening; then, suspending himself by his hind feet, with a leg on each side, he dropped his head and most part of his body into the chasm, and, with a foot applied to each side of the neck, attempted, for some minutes, to push the rope over his head. Finding this scheme ineffectual, he removed to the main ice, and, running with great impetuosity from the ship, gave a remarkable pull on the rope; then, going backwards a few steps, he repeated the jerk. At length, after repeated attempts to escape this way, every failure of which he announced by a significant growl, he yielded himself to hard necessity, and lay down on the ice in angry and sullen silence.