broad, wooden stirrup into a thousand chips between its savage teeth. Königstein, however, had pulled his foot out and flew with his horse to our side. Again we sent a hailstorm of bullets into the broad back of the infuriated animal, upon which it sank on its hind-quarters, as a bullet had smashed its spine. Its fury and the roars it uttered were fearful, and turning in a circle on its monstrous forepaws it covered a large space around it with its blood, which streamed from its shaggy carcass. I shouted to my friends not to fire, as I saw Tiger had dismounted and was hastily loading his rifle, and I wished to grant him the pleasure of killing the bear. He fired his bullet into its head, and then cut off its claws with great satisfaction. We took the paws, tongue, and liver of the huge animal, while Tiger rode back to the stream, and thence shouted to us to join him. We rode up, and found in the water a two-year old, very handsome chestnut horse, which the bear had captured on the prairie, and, as the trampled grass showed us, had dragged to the stream, in order to enjoy its meal without being disturbed. I took the tusks of the slain animal, and with the new matter for conversation which this fight gave us, we shortened the road to our camp, which lay in an exquisite hollow on the south side of lofty crags, under which a clear torrent rolled over loose stones that glistened like gold. They contained a substance which really resembled this metal, so that they shone through the water hurrying over them like lumps of pure gold. Some stately palms, maples, and oaks overshadowed our camp, and served as a cool retreat for the countless songsters that saluted us with their evening hymn. It is incomprehensible why the belief prevails throughout Europe that American birds are very brilliantly plumaged, but cannot sing, while most certainly there are sweeter songsters and more varieties of them on this continent than in Europe. A single bird is wanting, the nightingale, but it is compensated a thousandfold by the mocking bird. All other classes of birds are represented, though with different and finer plumage. The belief may arise from the fact that emigrants from Europe land in the large eastern cities, and in their walks in their vicinity see no birds, from the circumstance that boys there of ten years old run about with guns and kill every bird that shows itself: and then again, these persons only seek the shade of the trees and bushes during the heat of the day, when all birds silently hide themselves from the burning sun. If they went out in the morning, however, when nature is awakening, they would hear quite as good singers as in their old home.