Exhibit item:
H.R. ROBINSON
Mose in California: Set To With a Bear, 1849
Hand colored lithograph on paper

Quotation:
[ANONYMOUS]
"The Grizzly Bear of California"
Harper's New Monthly Magazine, January 1857

" ...To hunt bears you must hunt them."
"It is a passion."
"An ambition, rather. This region pleases me. There are bears larger, stronger, and more difficult to kill than the lions of Algiers. One of these will sometimes overtake a horse at speed. They are long-limbed, active, and full of cunning. As for their courage, they are seldom disheartened except by fatal wounds. The bear of this country resembles the man who hunts him, and it is this resemblance of character that gives interest to the chase."
"How many bears have you killed in California?"
"Seventy large bears, and twice the number of smaller ones. The cubs and young bears of the season are excellent eating, but a man must be hungry to eat the sinewy flesh of a full-grown grizzly."
"Two hundred and ten in ten years!"
"Yes, but they are scarcer now. When I came here first, we saw them every day. Now we ride sometimes fifty miles to find a bear."