The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1893-04-24
Let me to thy bosom fly
While the pillows near me roll,
While the tempest still is high,
Hide me. 0, my Savior hide
SPOILED HIS HOME HUNTING
By Getting Acquainted With a Su-
perior Breed of Bears in California.

From the New York Sun.
'Since l had my bear hunt out in Cali.
fornia said Col. Noah Parker of Gar.
deau, Pa, sit don't seem much better
than going out after coons to hunt the
Pennsylvania bears.
The bears out in California, seems to
me, are pretty near twice as big as the
bears that live in the Pennsylvania mount
aims. / don't mean the grizzlies, but the
ordinary tree-climbing bears. And they
roost high, too. They can't help them
selves, for out there pine trees are so tall
that they call EN- saplings if they have a
limb nearer the ground than 100 feet. And
when bear don't want to stay and have
fight with you he just makes for one of
those trees and goes up among the
branches, and then you have to do some
tolerable good shooting to call him down
again.
Il was in Sonoma county and went after
bear one day. | went after bear on sew
eral days, but this day in particular.
had my Winchester and five good dogs. It
was long time before the dogs got bear
on the move but when they did get one
going they soon sent him hmrying for
cover up one of those big pine trees. |
found the dogs huddled around the foot of
an ordinary sized pine-ordinarY for that
country, but it would have made one of
our biggest pine trees look like a currant
bush alongside of it-and | knew, of
course, that was the tree the bear had
gone to rooSt in.
"The nearest limb, as near as I could
Judge, was 165 feet above the ground
skinned my eye up along the stem of the
tree and discovered the bear living on
limb so much higher than the lower one
that he didn't look much bigger than
rabbit.
'"Wel! said l. This is going to be
pretty fine work for the eyes,
Il drew bead on the bear, though, and
whanged away. BY the way he started
and give himself a sort of nervous hump,
] knew ! had hit him somewhere. But
all the same ! didn't tumble him oft his
perch, so | sent another ball up at him "a
THAT bullet set a little closer to the
bear than the first one, and he let go his
hold on the limb and came tumbling down
in a way that made the dogs howl for
Joy. The bear shot straight down along
the tree trunk, about two feet from it.
AS he came on down, gradually getting
bigger and bigger and bigger to the sight.
l couldn't help feeling little proud, for
thought that was about the sliclIest
Knockout anybody had ever given bear
But | soon discovered that | didn't know
all the points about these California
bears.
1.-The big brute came pitching down
head first, until he had tumbled many a
hundred feet or SO, when all Of a sudden
it seemed to strike him that he was do
ing a rather foolish sort of thing, for
quicker than flash he turned a somer-
sault in the air and came around with the
claws of all four of his feet square against
the tree. He dug his toe nails into the
tree and hung there as unconcerned as if
he had been sleeping bat.
THAT remarkable maneuver of the
bear took my breath away and the dog
actually laid down and howled with dis
appointment. Before could recover the
bear had rested himself and climbed back
to the limb | had tumbled him from,
although the blood was pattering down on
the ground like rain from the leaks nv
bullets had made in him.
We'll, said l, If anybody should ask
me this minute whether had ever seen a
bear before, I'd have to say no.
But | sent another bullet up the tree
after him. OF course it hit him, but he
didn't mind it any, and it wasn't until 7
| had sent three more after that one that
he saw that he had to come down. and he
didn't tumble down, either, but Just
walked along the limb to the trunk of the
tree, grabbed it with his claws, and slid
down that big stem like a pile-driver. n
''He came down so like a streak that he
was on the ground and had one of nv
dogs under one arm and another by the
neck and squeezed the life out of both of
'em before l could have said Jack Robin
son. Then 1 emptied few more ounces
of lead into him and he tumbled over
dead, squashing the life out of two more
dogs as he fell picked five more bears
out of the trees within gunshot of that
pine within an hour after that, but none
of 'em was big as that old fellow. didn't
weigh him, but his pelt measured II feet
IL inches from tail to snout. l should feel
small to go out after Pennsylvania bear
now, and am sorry l got acquainted with
the bears of California"