by his Iong tongue when he comes to a nest.
Occasionally, too, he may be seen sitting gravely
by the side of a stream, and knocking the trout
dexterously out of the water with his heavy paw.
The Swiss bear, however ravenous, never, it is
said, attacks a man without provocation. When
he meets a peasant, he generally stares at him
and then trots off. A story is told of one
amiable Grandfather, who, encountering a little Red
Ridinghood with a basket of strawberries,
quietly helped himself, but did no harm to the
girl, who was too much terrified to run away.

On the other hand, however, a Norwegian
tourist fell into the bear-pit at Berne three years
ago, and next morning his body was found in a
dreadfully mangled condition, having been torn
to pieces by the bears. Possibly, in falling, he
struck upon one of them, and this may have led
to a fight. There seems to be a touch of the
cannibal about Bruin, for he would eat, or at
least kill, his own cubs if the mother did not
drive him away by growls and even blows.
During the present summer, one of the bears at
Berne, when climbing the pole, lost his footing,
and falling to the ground was very much hurt.
As soon as his companions saw the blood flowing,
they seemed to be seized with a sudden
fury, and, rushing upon the wretched animal,
worried him to death.

According to Fili, the best season for
bear-hunting is in the winter, when the footprints on
the snow betray his whereabouts, and when he
may often be found in a drowsy, languid state.
In February, moreover, he casts the skin on the
soles of his feet and cannot run quickly. It is a
mistake to suppose that he is always slow in his
movements; although he does not hurry himself
unnecessarily, he can be fleet enough when he
chooses, and a man would have some difficulty
in out-distancing him. If let alone, he would
decline a combat with a human antagonist; yet,
when once wounded, or even fired at, his rage
is ungovernable, and he will face any odds.
Such is the vindictiveness of a bear when roused,
that one has been known to follow a hunter, who
had shot him, for a whole day, tracking him
through woods, and swimming rivers after him.
For these reasons, bear-hunters generally go in
couples, and the first shot at the bear is fired,
if possible, from behind. In fighting with a
man, it seems to be the habit of Grandfather
Blacktooth to advance on his hind legs; and
formerly it was a favourite feat of the Grison
sportsmen to close with him, grasping him tightly
with the arm round the neck, and thrusting a hand,
guarded by a steel gauntlet, down the throat
of the animal, and then trying to stab him in
the belly. A similar practice used to prevail in
Sweden.

There are many stories of dreadful combats
conducted in this manner. At Dissentis a bear
pursued by a hunter took refuge in a narrow
cave on the side of a lofty mountain; the man
saw the eyes glaring through the darkness, and
fired. A loud groan followed, and then all was still,
so he concluded the beast was slain, and went
off for assistance to carry the carcase. Returning
next day with three companions, he was
horrified, on entering the hole, to find the bear
alive; it sprang upon him at once, bore him to
the ground, and the couple, locked in a life and
death struggle, rolled to the brink of a precipice,
when a well-directed bullet from one of the
others killed the bear, and saved the man's life,
which would in any ease have been forfeited had
not the shot on the previous day broken the
beast's teeth. A contest of a ludicrous character
occurred at Berne. A lusty young peasant, who
had, over and over again, been victor in the
annual wrestling matches, inflamed with wine,
vowed that he would crown his achievements by
challenging a bear. At the moment one was
dancing to a tabor in the market-place, and with
much persuasion and a heavy bribe he obtained
permission from the keeper to try a fall. The
two took up their position, and after a little of
the usual play, the man tossed his adversary
high in the air, and flung him to the ground
with a force that would have knocked wind,
sense, and probably life, out of any other
creature than a bear. That was "one" for the
biped; and, according to the rules of the game,
Bruin should have released his conqueror and
stood up for another bout. Master Blacktooth,
however, had notions of his own on that score,
and maintaining his hold, "put the hug on" so
desperately, that the man would have been
suffocated, or squeezed to death, if the keeper
and on-lookers had not hastened to the rescue.
Fortunately the bear was muzzled, or worse
consequences might have ensued.

Everybody has heard of the bears of Berne.
Nobody, certainly, can be long in that city without
having them brought under his notice in
one way or other. There are the colossal bears
at, the Fribourg gate, and numerous other bears,
fantastic alike in garb and attitude, perched
on steeples, swinging on signs, and stuck about
everywhere; there is the procession of bears
marching with swords and halberds, to the
music of flutes, fiddles, and drums, in the
celebrated mechanical clock; and, last, not least, there
is the bear-pit which I have already mentioned.
The bear gives his name to the city, and
supports its arms. In return, the city, in accordance
with an ancient tradition which has acquired
the sacredness of a law, maintains several
living specimens of the animal with which it is
so closely identified. A lady once left a legacy
of sixty thousand livres for the benefit of the
hears, but the French carried this away, and on
the restoration of peace the citizens subscribed
sixty thousand francs as an endowment for the
bear-pit. This capital, however, was further
curtailed by the expense of removing their
quarters from the inside to the outside of the
city, which was rendered necessary by a curious
incident. The jail adjoined the pit, and the
turnkey was alarmed one morning to find a bear
in the cell where, the night before, he had left a
man. The prisoner had escaped by a hole in the
wall into the fosse, while one of the bears had
entered I he prison by the same aperture. There
are a couple of pits, one for the old bears, and