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HOW TO HUNT AND TRAP THE BEAR | |
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HOW TO HUNT AND TRAP THE BEAR
The American black bear is of two kinds. One is short-legged and has a heavy body, sometimes weighing five hundred pounds, and is black all over. The other is longer legged, not generally so heavy, and has a brown face. This one is a great racer. Wherever there is much woods or forest, there bears abound. They are not put together like the dog or hog, or any other animal. Their fore legs bend like a man's arms, and they use them in the same way.
They are great hog eaters. Their mode of catching the hog is to take him up in their arms and squeeze him some, commencing at the same time to take their dinner out of the shoulder and neck at the back of the hog, while alive, and squealing as only a hog can squeal.
Bruin will carry a hog as heavy as himself, holding him in his arms clear of the ground, crossing a stream on a log as steadily as a man could do it. He is not troubled with a tail when in an upright position, for he has no tail to speak of. His cars are small, his mouth large, his teeth strong, his fore paws like a man's hand, his hind feet and legs much like a man's feet and legs. I have skinned a fat bear and stretched him out, lying on his face, his white fat making him look very much like a man. No animal kind I ever saw bears so near a resemblance.
"When he travels along he makes tracks with only the fore part of his feet, but when he sits or stands, a full-sized track with his hind feet may be seen, or when he is walking upright.
He is a great natural boxer, and it is not easy to hit him with a club or any such weapon, for he defends himself like a well-trained pugilist, while a slap from his ugly paw tells on man or beast.
He is a great hand to fight dogs, sets himself up on end and cuffs them right and left, one clip being enough to make a cripple.
The bear is very fond of sweets, and will go any length to rob bees of their honey. It is one of their curious tricks to climb a tree where bees have stored their honey, and gnaw them out. Their constant growling about the bees' stings often shows their whereabouts to the hunter.
They also rob a bee-house when they have a chance, and they are often betrayed at the hog-pen by the squealing of the hogs. Nothing suits them better than to find a hog in a pen, and no one to oppose them. They will climb in and out again, hog and all. They are very fond of corn in the roasting-ear state, and it is not slow the way they will sit up to a hill of corn and take the ears. I have seen them in a field of wheat or oats standing on their hind feet, and with their fore paws gathering the grain to their mouths with great handiness. They are very fond of acorns, beech nuts, huckleberries, and all kinds of sweet berries, and they will go some distance to get apples. In fact, it is a good plan to set a bear trap under a sweet apple tree. They are quite as hard to get a shot at as a deer, being wild and watchful.
The bear is very fond of water and loves to swim, and you can overtake him with a boat; but mind to shoot him before you go too near, for if you fail to kill him he is bound to get aboard if the boat stays right side up, and if your gun is not loaded he will stand as good a chance as you to get ashore alive.
It is a rare thing for a bear to attack a man, but you must not assault the female when she has cubs, or you will pay for it. Old Mr. Pomeroy, hunting his cows one morning, saw a she-bear standing in his road. Says he, " Old girl, I'll give you a scare;" so he pulled his old frock over his head and made at her with a great " boo." But old Mrs. Bruin never flinched, but dove right at him, and he turned and put for home as hard as he could go, with one sole of his shoe partly loose, flapping as he went, and the old bear right at his heels, warming his butt at every jump, almost to his house door. The old man said she never could have made any impression on his stern, for it was.dried up as hard as a butternut.
The bear is a hibernating animal, and goes into winter quarters as soon as cold weather sets in. Some times they stay out until the snow is quite deep on the ground. But they generally make for their dens before this; sometimes they take up their quarters in a hollow tree, climbing up and letting themselves down inside, and sometimes they have a hole scooped out of the earth, and have a great lot of stuff gathered to stop the mouth of the hole, drawing it after them as they go in. If mast and nuts are plenty in the fall, they will go in fat and will not get any poorer. They lie and suck their paws all winter.
It is here that they bring forth their cubs, from two to three in number. When they first come out in the early spring, the cubs are about the size of large kittens. They make a crying noise, very much like a little baby. The mother will defend them to the last, and it is very dangerous to offend her if not well prepared. If the bear is taken when young, it is easily domesticated and taught many tricks.
After the snow has fallen, if you come across a bear's track, follow it up, and sooner or later you will trace him to his den. If this is a cave in the earth, you can block it up with logs of wood until you are prepared to kill him.
One mode of trapping the bear is as follows: Go to that part of the wood that is frequented by bears and cut some logs about six feet long. Lay three of them down parallel, occupying a space of about six feet wide from outside to outside. Then lay other logs across these close together, as you would lay a corduroy-road, and pin them down to the sleepers thoroughly. Then lay up four sides, cob-house fashion, two feet high, thoroughly pinned together, with a door cut in one side, two and a half feet wide. This is the bottom half of the trap. Now build a similar box, that, when turned upside down, will slide into the bottom one, so that the space will not be above eight or ten inches when they are dropped together. Now cut a log of wood, say twelve inches through and twenty feet long, and pin the top box directly across the end of this. Support the beam across a log in such a way that the box can be moved up and down, so as to open or rise out of the bottom and make a space of three feet. Set this with a standard and spindle baited with a chunk of some kind of fresh meat, daubed with honey, honey and oil of anise being at the same time well smeared over the inside of the trap. The heft of the top house and beam, when sprung, should be enough to crush any bear that might chance that way. Another good way to catch a bear when he has been committing depredations on a hog or other farm animals is to set a big steel trap in a spring hole or swampy place, putting a natural looking bit of moss on the pan for him to step on, and hanging a bait of the dead animal where he can only get it by going over the trap.
Where bears come into cornfields, they often set spring guns to shoot Mr. Bruin; but that is a dangerous way of doing it. I have known men to be killed instead of the bear. It is a good way to hunt the bear with a dog that understands him, and will only nip him in the hams. This will soon cause him to tree, and he is a pretty good climber for so large an animal. He climbs almost exactly as a man does, but if you are careless about going up to the tree to shoot him, he will come down not exactly like a man. lie puts his arms around the tree, and lets go and comes down with a big scrape or slip, striking the ground with his butt sufficient to make him bound three feet high. But he is ready for off, and you have lost your shot. So be careful and go up slyly and shoot him out.
Thrasher, Halsey. The Hunter and Trapper. New York: Orange Judd and Company, 1808.
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