The hunting of the bear without being dangerous, is highly profitable, when attended with success; of all coarse furs their skins are the most valuable, and the quantity of oil procured from one bear is considerable. The flesh and fat are boiled together, and then the oil is separated; “this done”, says Du Pratz, "it is purified by throwing into it, while very hot a large quantity of salt and water; a thick smoke arises which carries off the disagreeable smell of the fat; when the smoke is evaporated they pour the grease, while still warm, into a pot, where it is left to settle for eight or ten days, at the expiration of which a clear oil is found swimming at the top; this is taken off with ladles, is equally good with the best olive oil, and is used for the same purposes. Under it remains a lard as white as hog’s-lard, but rather more soft, and which has neither a disagreeable taste or smell." This account of M. du Pratz is perfectly acceded to by M. Dumont, who adds, that the savages of Louisiana carry on a considerable traffic with the French in this oil from the bears, that it never loses its fluidity but in intense frosts, when it becomes clotted, is of a dazzling whiteness, and is then eaten upon bread like butter. The author of the Dictionnaire du Commerce says, that good bear’s-grease should be grey, viscid, and of a disagreeable flavour, and when very white it is adulterated with suet. It is used as a topical remedy for tumours, rheumatic, and other complaints, and many people have a high opinion of its salutary properties.
From their great quantity of fat, bears are excellent swimmers. In Louisiana, Dumont says, they cross that great river with perfect ease; they are very fond of the fruit of the guiacana, the trees of which they climb, and sit astride upon the branches to eat it; they are also partial to potatoes and yams. In autumn they are so fat that they can hardly walk, at least they cannot run as fast as a man; it is sometimes ten inches thick on their sides and thighs. The under part of their paws is large and swelled, and when cut there issues out a white milky juice. This part seems composed of glands resembling small nipples, and this is the reason why they continually suck their paws when confined to their dens during winter.
The bear enjoys the sense of seeing, hearing, and feeling, in great perfection, although compared with his size, his eye is small, his ears short, and his skin coarse and covered with a quantity of hair. His smell, is, perhaps, more exquisite than that of any other animal; the internal surface of his nose being very extensive and excellently calculated to receive impressions from odoriferous bodies. Their legs and arms are fleshy, like those of man, and they strike with their paws in the same manner as he does with his fists; they have also a short heel bone, which makes part of the sole of the foot; in their kind of hands the thumb is not separated, and the largest finger is on the outside; but whatever rude resemblance they may have to the human species, they only render them the more deformed without giving them the smallest superiority over other animals.
SUPPLEMENT.
Since the publication of the original work I have received the following particulars from M. de Musly, a major in the service of the States General. He says, that at Berne, they have several bears in a kind of domestic state, which are kept in large square ditches lined at the sides and bottom with stone, and where they have room to walk about they have dens made for them, which are also paved, on a level with the bottom of the ditch; these are divided into two by walls, and are occasionally shut with iron gates; troughs of fresh water are set for them in each ditch, and holes are left in the pavement sufficient to set up large trees on an end. Thirty-one years since two young brown bears were brought thither from Savoy, the male of which was killed by a fall from one of the trees into the ditch about two months ago (this account is dated October 17, 1771), and the female is still alive. At the age of five years they began to generate, and from that time they regularly came in season in the month of June, and the female brought forth in January. The first time, she had only one; since she has had from one to three, but never more; the three last years she had one each time, and the man who looks after her thinks she is now pregnant. When first whelped they are yellow, and white round the neck, and have not the smallest appearance of bears; they are blind four weeks; they measure about eight inches at first, and at the end of three months fourteen or fifteen; they are then almost round, and have a sharp pointed snout; they are by no means strong until they are full grown, before which time the white hair is quite gone, having decreased by degrees, and the yellow is changed into a brown.
The male and female sometimes fight furiously, growling horribly at each other, but when in season the latter generally gets the better. The ditches in which these two bears were formerly kept, being to be filled up, they were necessarily separated for a few hours while removing to the other ditches prepared for them; on their meeting again they raised themselves on their hind legs, and embraced each other in a kind of rapture; and upon the death of the male, the female was much affected, and refused to eat for several days. But this attachment is not common to them, for unless brought up and fed together from very young cubs they cannot bear each other; yet after living thus together, the survivor will not admit the approaches of another. They are very fond of climbing the trees put into the ditches, which are green larches, and placed there every May. They are commonly fed with rye-bread soaked in water; and they will eat all sorts of fruits. When the female is near her time, she is furnished with plenty of straw, which she appropriates for her use, and then the male is removed, lest he should devour the young ones; they are allowed to remain with their mother for the space of ten weeks, when they are removed, and fed for some time with bread and biscuit.
M. de Musly afterwards informed me that the female they had thought pregnant was supplied with straw at the necessary time, but though she made a bed and rested upon it for three weeks, she did not bring forth anything; therefore the last time she brought forth she had but one, and was at the age of thirty-one years. He likewise adds, that there are brown bears on Mount Jura, in Franche-comté, and in the county of Gex, which come into the plains in autumn, and do great damage in the chesnut woods.
There are two species of bears in Norway, one of which is much smaller than the other; in both there are different colours, such as dark and light brown, grey, and every shade of white, at least so says Pontoppidan; and also that they retire to the dens which they have prepared in October. Being very formidable, when wounded, three or four hunters usually go together, and as he easily kills large dogs, they use small ones, which run under his belly and seize him by the genitals; when nearly overpowered, he places himself against a tree, and throws tufts or stones at his foes, until he is dispatched.
In the menagerie of Chantilly there is an American bear, with fine, soft, straight black hair, whose head is longer, and snout shorter than the bears of Europe. And M. de Bertram mentions a bear that was killed near St. John’s river in East Florida, which was seven feet long, weighed 400lbs. and from which 60 Paris pints of oil were drawn.
THE BEAVER.