The Olneyville tribune. (Providence, R.I.) 1893-189?, 1894-08-25
HARD TO KILL A GRIZZLY.
hs Can Do Plenty Of Damage When
Nominaily Dead"

Personally | have more respect for
His Majesty. the Grizzly Bear, than
for any other animal ever trailed,
the tiger not excepted, writes w. L.
Hornaday in an article ON the bears
Of North America in st. Nicholas. 10
is quite true that many an able
bodied Grizzly is caught mapping and
killed dead easy" as the baseball
language says, but so are big tigers
also. for that matter. In fact, l
know of one large tiger weighing
within five pounds of five hundred.
who was promptly laid low by two
bullets from mere pop-gun OF
rifle, and there was no fuss about 1T,
either.
Ii is easy enough to kill Grizzly
at good safe distance of a hundred
yards or so, which allows the hunter
to fire from three TO six shots by the
time the teeth and claws get danger
ously near. But to attack "A fully
grown and wide-awake Ursus horri-
bills in brushy ground at twenty or
thirty yards distance is no child's
play. AS an old hunter once quaint
ly expressed it to me, "A Grizzly Bar
III git up an come at ye with blood
in his eye after he's nominally
dead" The point Of it is, this bear
is so big, and so enveloped in long,
shaggy hair, his head is so wedge
like, his strength and tenacity Of life
so great, and his rage when wounded
so furious thar at that short range he
is hard to kill quickly, and killed so
dead that he cannot get blow at the
hunter.
The strength in a Grizzly's arm is
tremendous, and when the blow
comes accompanied with claws five
or six inches long, like 50 many
hooks of steel on sledge-hammer, IL
tears to shreds what it fails to crush.
There are many authentic instances
on record Of hunters and trappers
who have been killed by Grizzly
Bears, and / believe it could be proved
that this animal has killed more men
| than all the other wild animals in
| North America combined, excepting
/ the skunks and their rabies.
In the days of the early pioneers,
the only rifles used were the muzzle-
loading, hair-trigger squirrel-rifies
of small caliber, and they were no
match for the burly Grizzly, either in
/ speed or strength. As a result Bruin
/ had the best Of it, and in time
| brought about perfect reign of
/ terror among the frontiersmen who
/ trespassed upon his domain. For
my part, I certainly would not want
to attack big Grizzly" at short
range with my fathers old Ken
lucky rifle, Of 32 caliber, unless /
/ had my will made, and all my earthly
affairs in shape to be left for q
long period. But with the rise of
the breechloader the tables turned
| and, like all other dangerous animals,
| the Grizzly soon found out that the
odds were against him. To be sure,
he still kills his hunter now and
then, sometimes by one awful stroke
of his paw, and sometimes by biting
his victim to death. But he has
almost ceased to attack men will
fully and without cause as he once
did. Unless he is wounded or corn
cred or thinks he is cornered and
about to be attacked, he will gener-
ally run whenever he discovers a
man. But when he is attacked and
especially IL wounded, he gets mad
clean through. Then he will fight
anything, even a circular saw, so 1t
is said, and give it five turns the
start