The Washington times., 1901-11-10
THE HUMORISH OF BEASTS
TIE Black Bear the Low Comedian
Of Brute Creation.
Full of Curiosity Which often Gets
Him Into TroubIc-Both Wise and
JocuIar-an Impressive Tragedy
of the Forest.


Jocuiar-an Impressive Tragedy
of the Forest.
While the black bear can and does on
occasion rise to the height OF tragedy,
comedy is his favorite line. He is the
h,,rnorist of the brute creation-a born
low comedian. He has the liyeliest sense
of the ridiculous, and IS always looking
about him for ways and means to indulge
it. He is comic even in captivity. Wher-
eyer there is bearpit, men, women and
children will gather, j0stling to get near
er. craning necks to see better, and al
ways manifesting their amusement in
smiles and gfins 1t IS not because
there is anything grotesque or ludicrous
in the natural form or feature oI
the bear that people do him the
homage of pleased attendance at ms
levees. On the contrary, there Is some
thing IMPRESSIVE and dignihed in the
presence of a perfect specimen of the bear
when he is not acting. If it Were oddity
and comicality of makeup that the people
at rnenagerie or zoo. big and little, youns
and old gathered together to seek 10 De
amused by. they would go to the angular
and knoboy camel, or the caqacious
mouthed hippopOtamus, eNcruciatlnSly
clad in his loose skin, and simply laugh
themselves sick. They crowd all the ave
nuos to the bearpit, not to see the bear
| himself. but to see what the bear does
| And the bear never disappoints them.
As a rule the Imagination Of the av-
| erage backwoods dweller and his wiling
ness to exercise it are as much part OF
| his constitutional makeup, as his ability
| TO eat. But there are among these de-
n ND
woody. men who are Ooth by bent and
| talent incapable Of fabricating their
quaint and curious chronicles of the hills
and forest. and the tales Of such as these
give pleasing evidence OF what odd and
| grotesque-as well as tragic-things the
| bear really does among his native haunts-
| I am reminded Of more than one of these
| truthful Observers Of the ways of bears
| and particularly of Leroy Lyman, OF fot-
| ter County, in Pennsylvania.
| Leroy Lyman was natural woodsman,
learned in all the ways Of the woods and
of the creatures that dwelt in them. Par
ticularly was he wise in the ways OF
bears. which were an ever-varying study
to him, and a constant wonder Ihe
| repertoire of his recitals Of the amazing
things that bears had done within his per-
sonal knowledge was large. he particu-
lIarly loved to tell about a wise and jocu-
lar bear he had long been trying to cir
cunvent, either by trap or gun, and winch
had deiied him, and belittled his skill IN
the use of both. On one occasion he had
set. in his most deXterous manner, Il trap
for the bear, and enclosed 1t with q renee
of rails on three sides, depending on the
weIl-known curiosity of its kind to lead
| the, bear into the enclosure, in which case
the chances were ten to one that the Dear
would step on the hidden trap and be
caught; past experience with tins pear
Having taught him that the placing OF
meat or honey or anything else as bait to
tempt the bear would only be to warn the
snort old ranger Of the danger that be
set him. To stimulate the curiosity of
Bruin. the trapper had stuck an old
beaver high Lat on a stake, and fastened
the stake in the ground just beyond the
trap within the enclosure. The morning
after the setting Of this trap Lyman went
out to look at IL and see what luck he
had met with from the application Of this
original i,iea in the trapping Of bears. a
few rods from the spot where he had set
the trap an Old road wound through the
wood. and along this the trapper walked
on his way to his trap As he rounded a
bend in the road he was brought to Il
sudden stop by an unexpected and sur
prising sight. On II big pile of rails or
saplings that lay straight across the road
sat bear on it's launches. and cooked
on its head was the beaver hat that Ly-
man had fixed in the bear trap enclosure
IT aid not take the quick eye of the
woodsman n moment to discover that the
rails were the ones he had placed so care
fully around the trap, and he knew in
stantly that the bear had detected his
| trick to catch IL and at once proceeded tC
mock the snnartEoss of its foe. That tn,
bear was waiting for the coming of the
trapper the latter was well satisfied. FOR
| the moment the jocular old beast saw
Lyman come round the bend in the road
il rose, took the hat from its head put il
on the top rail and deliberately sat on it
smashing it hat. The bear sat an instant
plainly enjoying the trapper's astonish
ment, and then scrambled down behino
| the rail pile and disappeared in the woods
before Lyman could recover sufficiently t'
shoot.
| Another time Lyman was on EiS wa!
| homo from a visit to a skllfully arrange
deadfal trap that lie had set tor TIM
same cunning bear, near which there wal
no sign of the bear having come. Lyman
was walking along that same old w"o'
| road easing himself by means OF a loh'
stick that he had picked mp In the woods
He was consoling himself with IN
| Thought that perhaps the bear had no
been in that part OF the woods since II
fixed the trap for II, and that 1t nigh
yet fall victim to his wiles, when h hap
pened to glance back over his snouide