an ordinary hillock, and when the ground is covered with a uniform carpet of snow, might be passed without detection.

8. Bears are nearly as careful of their comfort as cats, and use the greatest precaution in preparing a soft and warm bed, in which they lie at ease during their long sleep. The flooring of their winter-house is thickly covered with dried leaves, and all kinds of similar substances, the smaller branches of the pine-tree being in great request for this purpose.

WOOD.

49. ENCOUNTER WITH A GRIZZLY.

ac-cost'ed, addressed, spoke to. an-tag'o-nist, enemy, opponent.

im-pêd'ed, hindered, blocked. moc'cas-sin, a soleless Indian shoe.

1. A TRAPPER named Glass, and a companion, were setting their beaver-traps in a stream to the north of the River Platte, when they saw a large grizzly bear turning up the turf near by and searching for roots and pig-nuts. The two men creeping to the thicket fired at him; but though they wounded, they did not kill him. The beast groaned, jumped on all four legs from the ground, and, snorting with pain and fury, charged towards the place whence came the smoke of the rifles.

2. The men rushed through the thicket, where the underwood almost impeded their progress; but the beast's weight and strength carried him along so fast, that he soon came up with them. A steep bluff was situated a hundred yards off, with a level plain of grass between it and the thicket. The hunters flew across the latter with the utmost speed, the bear after them. When he reached about

half way, Glass stumbled over a stone and fell. He rose, and the bear stood before him on his hind legs.

3. Glass called to his companion to fire, and he himself sent the contents of his pistol into the bear's body. The furious animal, with the blood streaming from his nose and mouth, knocked the pistol away with one paw, while he stuck the claws of the other into the flesh of his antagonist, and rolled with him on the ground. Glass managed to reach his knife, and plunged it several times into the bear, while the latter with tooth and claw tore his flesh. At last, blinded with blood and exhaustion, the knife fell from the trapper's hand, and he became insensible.

4. His companion, who thought his turn would come next, did not even think of reloading his rifle, and fled to the camp, where others of his party were resting, to tell the miserable fate of their companion. Assistance was sent, and Glass still breathed, but the bear lay across him quite dead, from three bullets and twenty knife-wounds. The man's flesh was torn away in slips, and lumps of it lay upon the ground; his scalp hung bleeding over his face, which was also torn. The men took away the trapper's hunting-shirt, moccasins, and arms, dragged the bear off his body, and left him, declaring, when they rejoined their party, that they had completed his burial.

5. However, they had not buried him, most probably supposing that the wolves would save them that trouble. A few months afterwards, as some of the party were taking furs to a trading-fort for sale, they were met by a horseman of a singular appearance, whose face was so scarred and disfigured that his features could not be distinguished. The strange horseman accosted one of the party in the following words: "Hurrah! Bill, my boy, you thought I

was killed that time, did you? but hand me over my horse and furs, lad, I'm not dead yet."

6. The individual accosted, who was the man that accompanied Glass in his ill-fated expedition against the bear, was horrified at hearing the voice of one whom he imagined to have died long ago. There he was, however, and proved himself to be alive so completely that the party at last recovered sufficiently from their astonishment to hear his story.

7. It appeared that he must have lain for some time in a senseless state after they left him. When he recovered himself a little, he tore off the flesh of the dead bear for subsistence; and, having loaded himself with as much of this food as he could manage to carry, he crawled down to the river, and, without clothes or arms, set out for the fort, which was between eighty and ninety miles distant.

8. This brave fellow-weak, naked, and desperately wounded as he was contrived to reach his destination at last, having been forced to live on fruits and berries for the greater part of the journey. When he arrived there, he had been properly taken care of, and, although disfigured for life by the innumerable wounds that he had received, had perfectly recovered.

RUXTON.

1. THE habitation of the mole is made in a heap of earth raised by the inhabitant itself. This is not, however, one

of the numerous molehills so profusely scattered about the fields, but a very much larger heap raised for the purpose of containing the nest, and generally carefully hidden where it will not readily attract attention.

2. It is usually raised at the foot of a tree, in the center of a thick bush, or in some place where it is well defended. Here is the mole's dwelling-house, its castle, from which all its forces are directed, and to which it retreats if threatened with any danger. It has the thorough robber's horror for a house with only one way of egress, and accordingly

constructs its habitation in so ingenious a manner that it can escape in almost any direction.

3. The first operation in constructing a nest is to heap up a mound of earth, very compactly beaten together, as in the mound a variety of passages have to be made, and the earth must therefore be very compact to prevent the soil from falling in. Proceedings having been thus commenced, the four-footed excavator runs a circular gallery near the summit of the mound, and another near the bottom. These galleries are connected by five short passages. It then works its way into the very center of the mound, and digs a spherical hole, which it connects with the lower gallery by three passages.

4. A very large passage, called the mole's high-road, is then dug outside the nest, and is connected with the spherical hole by a gallery dipping under the circular galleries and entering the lower part of the spherical hole. Lastly, the mole constructs a great number of passages radiating from the nest in all directions, and all opening into the lower circular gallery. It will be seen from this description that if a mole is surprised in its nest, it can either dive through its central chamber and so reach its high-road at once, or it can slip through one of the short galleries and so escape into any of the radiating passages.

5. In the central spherical chamber the mole places a quantity of grass or leaves, and uses this as its bedchamber, in which it passes hours of deep repose, so that, after it has finished its work of burrowing, it betakes itself to the middle chamber, and there receives its wages in the form of sleep. This complicated house is not used in the summer months, as during that time the mole commonly resides in one of the ordinary molehills.