PREFACE.

My Bright Young Reader: I was once exactly your own age. Like all boys, I was, from the first, fond of bear stories, and above all, I did not like stories that seemed the least bit untrue. I always preferred a natural and reasonable story and one that would instruct as well as interest. This I think best for us all, and I have acted on this line in compiling these comparatively few bear stories from a long life of action in our mountains and up and down the continent.

 

As a rule, the modern bear is not a bloody¹, bad fellow, whatever he may have been in Bible days. You read, almost any circus season, about the killing² of his keeper by a lion, a tiger, a panther, or even the dreary³ old elephant, but you never hear of a tame bear’s hurting anybody.

 

I suppose you have been told, and believe, that bears will eat boys, good or bad, if they meet them in the woods. This is not true. On the contrary, there are several well-authenticated cases, in Germany mostly, where bears have taken lost children under their protection, one boy having been

 reared from the age of four to sixteen by a she bear without ever seeing the face of man.

 

I have known several persons to be maimed or killed in battles with bears, but in every case it was not the bear that began the fight, and in all my experience of about half a century I never knew a bear to eat human flesh, as does the tiger and like beasts.

 

Each branch of the bear family is represented here and each has its characteristics. By noting these as you go along you may learn something not set down in the schoolbooks. For the bear is a shy old hermit⁴ and is rarely encountered in his wild state by anyone save the hardy⁵ hunter, whose only interest in the event is to secure the skin and carcass.

 

Of course, now and then, a man of science meets a bear in the woods, but the meeting is of short duration. If the bear does not leave, the man of books does, and so we seldom get his photograph as he really appears in his wild state. The first and only bear I ever saw that seemed to be sitting for his photograph was the swamp, or “sloth,” bear—Ursus Labiatus—found in the marshes⁶ at the mouth of the Mississippi River. You will read of an encounter with him further on.

 

I know very well that there exists a good deal of bad feeling between boys and bears, particularly on the part of boys. The trouble began, I suppose, about the time when that old she bear destroyed more than forty boys at a single meeting, for poking⁷ fun at a good old prophet. And we read that David, when a boy, got very angry at a she bear and slew⁸ her single-handed and alone for interfering⁹ with his flock. So you see the feud¹⁰ between the boy and bear family is an old one indeed.

 

But I am bound to say that I have found much that is pathetic, and something that is almost half-human, in this poor, shaggy, shuffling¹¹ hermit. He doesn’t want much, only the wildest and most worthless parts of the mountains or marshes, where, if you will let him alone, he will let you alone, as a rule. Sometimes, out here in California, he loots a pig-pen, and now and then he gets among the bees. Only last week, a little black bear got his head fast in a bee-hive that had been improvised¹² from a nail-keg, and the bee-farmer killed him with a pitchfork; but it is only when hungry and far from home that he seriously molests¹³ us.

 

The bear is a wise beast. This is, perhaps, because he never says anything. Next to the giraffe, which you may know never makes any noise or note whatever, notwithstanding the wonderful length of his throat, the bear is the most noiseless of beasts. With his nose to the ground all the time, standing¹⁴ up only now and then to pull a wild plum or pick a bunch of grapes, or knock a man down if he must, he seems to me like some weary old traveler that has missed the right road of life and doesn’t quite know what to do with himself. Ah! if he would only lift up his nose and look about over this beautiful world, as the Indians say the grizzly¹⁵ bear was permitted to do before he disobeyed and got into trouble, an account of which you will find further on, why, the bear might be less a bear.

 

Stop here and reflect on how much there is in keeping your face well lifted. The pig with his snout to the ground will be forever a pig; the bear will be a bear to the end of his race, because he will not hold up his head in the world; but the horse—look at the horse! However, our business is with the bear now.

 

1 bloody   

adj.非常的的；流血的；残忍的；adv.很；vt.血染

参考例句：

• He got a bloody nose in the fight.他在打斗中被打得鼻子流血。
• He is a bloody fool.他是一个十足的笨蛋。

2 killing   

n.巨额利润；突然赚大钱，发大财

参考例句：

• Investors are set to make a killing from the sell-off.投资者准备清仓以便大赚一笔。
• Last week my brother made a killing on Wall Street.上个周我兄弟在华尔街赚了一大笔。

3 dreary   

adj.令人沮丧的，沉闷的，单调乏味的

参考例句：

• They live such dreary lives.他们的生活如此乏味。
• She was tired of hearing the same dreary tale of drunkenness and violence.她听够了那些关于酗酒和暴力的乏味故事。

4 hermit   

n.隐士，修道者；隐居

参考例句：

• He became a hermit after he was dismissed from office.他被解职后成了隐士。
• Chinese ancient landscape poetry was in natural connections with hermit culture.中国古代山水诗与隐士文化有着天然联系。

5 hardy   

adj.勇敢的，果断的，吃苦的；耐寒的

参考例句：

• The kind of plant is a hardy annual.这种植物是耐寒的一年生植物。
• He is a hardy person.他是一个能吃苦耐劳的人。

6 marshes   

n.沼泽，湿地( marsh的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• Cows were grazing on the marshes. 牛群在湿地上吃草。
• We had to cross the marshes. 我们不得不穿过那片沼泽地。 来自《简明英汉词典》

7 poking   

n. 刺，戳，袋 vt. 拨开，刺，戳 vi. 戳，刺，捅，搜索，伸出，行动散慢

参考例句：

• He was poking at the rubbish with his stick. 他正用手杖拨动垃圾。
• He spent his weekends poking around dusty old bookshops. 他周末都泡在布满尘埃的旧书店里。

8 slew   

v.（使）旋转；n.大量，许多

参考例句：

• He slewed the car against the side of the building.他的车滑到了大楼的一侧，抵住了。
• They dealt with a slew of other issues.他们处理了大量的其他问题。

9 interfering   

adj. 妨碍的 动词interfere的现在分词

参考例句：

• He's an interfering old busybody! 他老爱管闲事！
• I wish my mother would stop interfering and let me make my own decisions. 我希望我母亲不再干预，让我自己拿主意。

10 feud   

n.长期不和；世仇；v.长期争斗；世代结仇

参考例句：

• How did he start his feud with his neighbor?他是怎样和邻居开始争吵起来的？
• The two tribes were long at feud with each other.这两个部族长期不和。

11 shuffling   

adj. 慢慢移动的, 滑移的 动词shuffle的现在分词形式

参考例句：

• Don't go shuffling along as if you were dead. 别像个死人似地拖着脚走。 来自英汉文学 - 嘉莉妹妹
• Some one was shuffling by on the sidewalk. 外面的人行道上有人拖着脚走过。 来自英汉文学 - 嘉莉妹妹

12 improvised   

a.即席而作的,即兴的

参考例句：

• He improvised a song about the football team's victory. 他即席创作了一首足球队胜利之歌。
• We improvised a tent out of two blankets and some long poles. 我们用两条毛毯和几根长竿搭成一个临时帐蓬。

13 molests   

n.骚扰( molest的名词复数 )；干扰；调戏；猥亵v.骚扰( molest的第三人称单数 )；干扰；调戏；猥亵

参考例句：

• A dog that molests sheep has to be killed. 骚扰羊群的狗要被杀掉。 来自辞典例句

14 standing   

n.持续，地位；adj.永久的，不动的，直立的，不流动的

参考例句：

• After the earthquake only a few houses were left standing.地震过后只有几幢房屋还立着。
• They're standing out against any change in the law.他们坚决反对对法律做任何修改。

15 grizzly   

adj.略为灰色的，呈灰色的；n.灰色大熊

参考例句：

• This grizzly liked people.这只灰熊却喜欢人。
• Grizzly bears are not generally social creatures.一般说来，灰熊不是社交型动物。