Page:Round-about Rambles in Lands of Fact and Fancy, Stockton, 1872.djvu/176

166 A FEW WORDS ABOUT BEARS.

you should ever be going up a hill, and should meet such a procession as that on the opposite page, coming down, I would recommend you to get just as far to one side as you can possibly go. Bears, especially when there are so many of them together, are by no means pleasant companions in a walk.

But it is likely that you might wander about the world for the rest of your lives, and never meet so many bears together as you see in the engraving. They are generally solitary animals, and unless you happened to fall in with a mother and her cubs, you would not be likely to see more than one at a time.

In our own country, in the unsettled parts of many of the States, the black bear is still quite common; and I could tell you of places where, if you pushed carefully up mountain-paths and through lonely forests, you might come upon a fine black bear, sitting at the entrance of her cave, with two or three of her young ones playing about her.

If it should so happen that the bear neither heard you, saw you, or smelt you, you might see this great beast fondling her young ones, and licking their fur as gently and tenderly as a cat with her kittens.

If she perceived you at last, and you were at a distance, it is very probable that she and her young ones, if they were big enough, would all scramble out of sight in a very short time, for the black bears are very shy of man if circumstances will permit them to get away before he approaches too near to them. But if you are so near as to make the old bear-mother fearful for the safety of her children, you will find that she will face you in a minute, and if you are not