Page:The Zoologist, 4th series, vol 2 (1898).djvu/196

164 range of mountains and in Assam. The Ursus labiatus is confined to the peninsula of India and Ceylon, although I did shoot one in Assam. How it got there was a puzzle to Jerdon, the naturalist, as he declared it was not to be found in that part of the country at all; but as I had the almost fresh skin with skull attached, seeing was believing. But I must own that out of a good many shot by myself and others in that and the adjacent countries it alone was labiatus, all the others were tibetanus. Why this latter Bear should be so styled has been a puzzle, for it is not found in Thibet at all. The two Sun Bears are found in Burma and downwards in Malaya. The Sloth Bear is an ungainly-looking beast. It has long shaggy hair, a prolonged and very flexible snout and lower lip. The fur is black, and the muzzle and the tips of the feet being of a dirty white or yellowish colour. Its breast is ornamented with a whitish V-shape; a ball placed therein being certain death to the beast. This Bear feeds on White Ants, fruit, and honey; but although such a great authority as Sir Samuel Baker asserts it is not carnivorous, yet I have come upon both the labiatus and the tibetanus devouring the remains of dead animals which we had shot a day or two previously.

There is just sufficient danger in Bear shooting to make it an exciting sport. Bear spearing off horseback is undoubtedly a grand sport, but the Ursæ are seldom met with on ridable ground; but the late Geoffrey Nightingale must have speared several hundreds of them. If a Bear is wounded when in company with another, he invariably goes for his comrade under the idea, I suppose, that he has been the aggressor. They charge in a most determined manner; but when close by, they generally rise on their hind legs and claw at the sportsman's face. I have seen some terrible wounds inflicted by them, principally on unoffending woodcutters. It is useful to carry a stout spear with a crossbar when following up a wounded Bear. My shikarie, Mogul Beg, was charged by an old he-Bear; he thrust the broad blade a little way into the chest, but, stumbling, failed to drive the weapon home. The Bear seized the crossbar by the fore feet, and fairly drove the blade through his own body!

They all have very long powerful claws, by means of which