Note 18 — PETER KALM’s TRAVELS. (continued 2)

Bears are very numerous higher up in the country, and do much mischief. Mr. Bartram told me, that when a bear catches a cow, kills her in the following manner: he bites a hole into the hide, and blows with all his power into it, till the animal swells excessively and dies; for the air expands greatly between the flesh and the hide.18 An old Swede called Nils Gustave’s son, who was ninety-one years of age, said, that in his youth, the bears had been very frequent hereabouts, but that they had seldom attacked the cattle: that whenever a bear was killed, its flesh was prepared like pork, and that it had a very good taste. And the flesh of bears is still prepared like ham, on the river Morris. The environs of Philadelphia, and even the whole province of Pensylvania in general contain very few bears, they having been extirpated by degrees. In Virginia they kill them in several different ways. Their flesh is eaten by both rich and poor, since it is reckoned equal in goodness to pork. In some parts of this province, where no hogs can be kept on account of the great numbers of bears, the people are used to catch and kill them, and to use them instead of hogs. The American bears however, are said to be less fierce and dangerous, than the European ones.