Among the wild creatures in our host’s great forests were hares, wolves, moose, and bears.  The moose had retreated, for the hot weather, to the lakes on the Crown lands adjacent, to escape the maddening attacks of the gadflies.  Though it was not the hungry height of the season with the wolves, there was always an exciting possibility of encountering a stray specimen during our strolls, and we found the skull and bones of a horse which they had killed the past winter.  From early autumn these gray terrors roam the scene of our mushroom-parties, in packs, and kill cattle in ill-protected farmyards and children in the villages.

It was too early for hare-coursing or wolf-hunting, but feathered game was plentiful.  Great was the rivalry in “bags” between our host and the butler, a jealously keen sportsman.  His dog, Modistka (the little milliner), had taught the clever pointer Milton terribly bad tricks of hunting alone, and was even initiating her puppies into the same evil ways.  When “Monsieur, Madame, and Bebe;” returned triumphantly from the forest with their booty, and presented it to their indignant masters, there were fine scenes!  Bebe and his brothers of the litter were so exactly alike in every detail that they could not be distinguished one from the other.  Hence they had been dubbed tchinovniki (the officials), a bit of innocent malice which every Russian can appreciate.

Of the existence of bears we had one convincing glimpse.  We drove off, one morning, in a drizzling rain, to picnic on a distant estate of our host, in a “red” or “beautiful” forest (the two adjectives are synonymous in Russian), which is composed entirely of pines.  During our long tramp through a superb growth of pines, every one of which would have furnished a mainmast for the largest old-fashioned ship, a bear stepped out as we passed through a narrow defile, and showed an inclination to join our party.  The armed Russian and Mordvinian foresters, our guides and protectors, were in the vanguard; and as Misha seemed peaceably disposed we relinquished all designs on his pelt, consoling ourselves with the reflection that it would not be good at this season of the year.  We camped out on the crest of the hill, upon a huge rug, soft and thick, the work of serfs in former days, representing an art now well-nigh lost, and feasted on nut-sweet crayfish from the Volga, new potatoes cooked in our gypsy kettle, curds, sour black bread, and other more conventional delicacies.  The rain pattered softly on us, —­we disdained umbrellas,—­and on the pine needles, rising in hillocks, here and there, over snowy great mushrooms, of a sort to be salted and eaten during fasts.  The wife of the priest, who is condemned to so much fasting, had a wonderfully keen instinct for these particular mushrooms, and had explained to us all their merits, which seemed obscure to our non-fasting souls.  Our Russian forester regaled us with forest lore, as we lay on our backs to look at the tops of the trees.  But,