He must have been dead for some
hours. Fifty yards from where he knelt, the bear was found lying under
some bushes, quite dead, and with two bullet-holes through its carcass.
Cantin, it appeared, had expended all his ammunition, and the wounded
beast had executed a terrible vengeance on him while the life-blood
was welling through the last bullet-hole. I saw this bear brought into
Quebec, in a cart, on the following day; and it is to be seen yet, I
believe, or at least the taxidermal presentment of it is, in the shop of
a furrier in John Street of that city. An enterprising druggist bought
up the little fat left in the animal after its long winter's fast; and
such was the demand among sensational people for gallipots of "grease of
the bear that killed Cantin," that it seemed as if fashion had ordained
the wearing of hair "on end."

Of the other wild beasts of this hill-district, the commonest is that
known to the inhabitants as the _loup-cervier_,--a name oddly enough
misconstructed by a writer on Canadian sports into "Lucifer." This is
the true lynx,--a huge cat with long and remarkably thick legs, paws in
which dangerous claws are sheathed, and short tail. Its principal prey
is the common or Northern hare, which abounds in these regions: but at
times the _loup-cervier_ will invade the poultry-yards; and he is even
held to account, now and then, for the murder of innocent lambs, and the
disappearance of tender piglings whose mothers were so negligent as to
let them stray alone into the brushwood. These fierce cats have been
killed, occasionally, quite close to Quebec. When thus driven to
approach populous districts, it must be from scarcity of their
accustomed food; for they are usually very savage and ravenous, when
found in such places. I know an instance, myself, in which a gentleman
of Quebec, riding a little way from the town, was suddenly pounced upon
and attacked by a _loup-cervier_, near the Plains of Abraham. He struck
the animal with his whip several times, but it persisted in following
him, and he got rid of it only by putting spurs to his horse and beating
it in speed. The animal was killed soon afterwards, near the same place.

I had heard of another variety of wildcat, seen at rare intervals in the
same districts. The _habitant_ is rather foggy on the subject of zoology
in general, and my attempts to obtain a satisfactory description of this
animal were futile. Some of the definitions of this rare _chat-