Of the hunting of the bear[763] the ancients have left us no exact description. As this animal abounded, however, in most parts of Greece, where it was extremely troublesome and destructive, particularly to the fruit-trees, various expedients were hit upon for taking and destroying it. Sometimes it was pursued as game and brought down by the bow; but the common method appears to have been to make use of traps and snares. They dug, for example, a deep trench round one of those trees in the fruit of which the bear particularly delighted, and covering it with reeds or brittle branches, they sprinkled thereon a thin layer of earth, and concealed the whole apparatus with fresh grass. The bear, proceeding as usual towards the tree on his thievish errand, broke in the roof of the pit with his weight, and was caught. Even in the most civilised times this animal had not been wholly extirpated from Attica,[764] but, as well as the boar, was found on Mount Parnes. In Laconia also, through the whole range of Taygetos, it abounded, together with hogs, deer, and wild goats. Bruin was sacrificed in Achaia to Artemis Laphria. In Thrace the white bear was found.[765] Footnote 763: Pausanias mentions the bear as an inhabitant of Pendeli. “About three years since one was shot in the mountains of Parnassos, and brought to Aracooa. The lynx, the wild cat, the wild boar, the wild goat, the stag, the roebuck, the badger, the martin, and squirrel inhabit the steeper rocks of Parnassos, and the thick pine forests above Callidia. The rough mountains about Marathon are frequented by moles, foxes, and jackals; weasels are sometimes taken in the villages and out-houses; hares are too numerous to be particularised.” Sibthorp in Walp. Mem. i. 73. Footnote 764: Paus. i. 32. 1. Footnote 765: Paus. iii. 20. 4. vii. 18. 13. viii. 17. 3.