To be more specific, the minister would announce that a certain farmer had found a “ring,” and that no one must trespass upon his “ring.” This would mean that a certain member of the church had been lucky enough to track a bear to its lair, and that, without disturbing him, he had drawn a wide circle around him in the snow. Henceforward that bear is his property, either to kill or to sell to some sportsman who wants the excitement of a bear hunt.
Bruin himself, it seems, is not very particular about his winter quarters. When he is ready for his winter’s nap he lies down and lets the snow cover him up as it will. It often makes a large heap over his improvised bedroom, and his breath, escaping like steam from a hole in the snow which it has melted, often reveals his hiding place to the sharp-eyed farmer, who is always on the lookout for it.
The discoverer rarely disturbs Bruin himself, but he sends word to the Tourist Association of Helsingfors that he has a “ring” for sale, and there are many keen hunters, some of whom come from Russia and some from England, who are glad to pay from seventy-five to eighty dollars for the ring. When the huntsman reaches the bear’s winter quarters, the dogs and the beaters rout out the bear, who usually puts up a very stiff fight, and not altogether a one-sided one before he is dispatched by the hunter.
I must say it seems to me something like burglary, if not highway robbery and murder, to drive inoffensive Bruin in the dead of his long winter night out of his cozy sleeping apartment. Especially I am sorry for the mother bear, who always keeps her cubs with her during the long night, while the father bear keeps a bedroom of his own. As a result of these bear hunts, it is said that “in Viborg and other towns it is not uncommon to see young bears which have been caught in this manner acting as playmates for the children, and running at large in the gardens and on the hills.”
I suppose that Aylmer told you all about skiing when he wrote you of his winter in Norway, and I will simply remind you, and Aylmer, too, if you will communicate the fact to him, that the “ski is a _Finnish_ invention, and was known here many years before it was introduced into Norway.” So that fact counts at least one point for my side of Scandinavia.