THE BLACK BEARIts Distribution and Habits

Scientificnaturalists, like other learned gentlemen in large spectacles, have a way (or it sometimes seems as though they had) of using very big words about very small matters. For instance, what they might describe as “an aquatic larva ofRana catesbianaor other Batrachian,” we would call a tadpole. And so on through the list. But we are obliged to assume that they have excellent reasons for their choice of language, and there is no getting around the fact that if we wish to profit by their wisdom we have to learn at least the simple rules of their speech.

We ought, for example, to understand that when a new animal, or a new variety of an old one, is discovered, or rather when it is officially described and listed by a naturalist, it is given a special Latin name which, added to the Latin name of the family to which it belongs, thenceforth serves to identify it among all students of natural history. Moreover, as a compliment to the man who thus stood god-parent for it in the scientific world, his name is added, in parentheses, to these Latin designations. Thus the Rocky Mountain grizzly bear is known to technical fame asUrsus horribilis(Ord), which, being interpreted, means that this much-misrepresented member of the bear tribe was first described officially by George Ord and was named by him “The Terrible.”

There have been many attempts to classify the North American bears; and from time to time, as new facts come to light, or new students advance new theories as to the relationships of the different species, these lists are altered. But before proceeding to give my own observations upon the actual habits and characteristics of the common Black Bear, theUrsus americanus(Pallas) of the text-books, I reproduce (without recourse) a list of what appear to be the most generally recognized varieties of bears inhabiting the North American continent.

The Polar Bear.Ursus maritimus(Desm.). Polar regions generally.

THE ALASKAN BROWN BEARS

The Kodiak Bear.Ursus middendorffi(Merriam). Kodiak Island, Alaska. The largest of all living bears.

The Yakutat Bear.Ursus dalli(Merriam). Yakutat Bay and seaward slopes of the St. Elias range.

The Admiralty Bear.Ursus eulophus(Merriam). Admiralty Islands, Alaska.

The Peninsula Bear.Ursus merriami(Allen). Portage Bay, Alaska Peninsula.

THE GRIZZLY BEARS

The Rocky Mountain Grizzly.Ursus horribilis(Ord). Rocky Mountains from Mexico to Alaska.

The Sonora Grizzly.Ursus horribilis horriæus(Baird). South-western New Mexico.

The Barren Ground Grizzly.Ursus richardsoni(Mayne Reid). Great Slave Lake regions and Barren Grounds.

THE BLACK BEARS

The American Black Bear.Ursus americanus(Pallas).

Scornborger’s Black Bear.Ursus americanus scornborgeri(Bangs). Labrador.

Queen Charlotte Islands Black Bear.Ursus americanus carlottæ(Osgood).

Desert Black Bear.Ursus americanus eremicus(Merriam). Coahuila, Mexico.

Florida Black Bear.Ursus floridanus(Merriam).

Louisiana Black Bear.Ursus luteolus(Griffith).

North-western Black Bear.Ursus altifrontalis(Elliot). Clallam County, Washington.

Alberta Black Bear.Ursus hylodromus(Elliot).

The Fighting Bear.Ursus machetes(Elliot). Chihuahua, Mexico.

OTHER MEMBERS OF THE BLACK-BEAR GROUP

Emmons’s Glacier Bear.Ursus emmonsi(Dall). Mt. St. Elias region, Alaska.

The Inland White Bear.Ursus kermodii(Hornaday). South-western British Columbia.

TheAmerican Black Bear, or, as our friends with the big spectacles have named him,Ursus americanus(Pallas), has by very long odds the widest distribution of any North American bear.

The polar bear stays well inside the Arctic Circle. The big brown Alaskan bears are only found in certain localities on or near the north-west coast of the continent. The grizzlies inhabit, or inhabited, the mountain regions of the extreme west from Mexico to Alaska. But the Black Bear is found in the central and northern parts of the United States and in the central and southern parts of Canada from the Atlantic coast to the shore of the Pacific Ocean; and his half brothers, or first cousins, or whatever they are, in Florida, Louisiana, Texas, and Old Mexico, are so much like him that it takes a specialist and sometimes a post-mortem examination to tell them apart.

I have watched and studied these animals in the open for nearly thirty years, and have played eavesdropper and Peeping Tom times out of number when they were unconscious of my presence; and yet I have had dealings with Black Bears in Texas and Old Mexico whom I would never for a moment have suspected of differing in blood or descent from their northern relatives. However, as we may see from the list already given, the Black Bears of Florida, Louisiana, Mexico, and certain restricted districts in the North, have been technically recognized as entitled to separate classification. And it is just as well to state clearly that in these pages all statements (unless otherwise indicated) refer to the common American Black Bear, and the term Black Bear, when unqualified, refers always toUrsus americanus(Pallas).

It is also just as well to call attention in the beginning to a mistaken idea that is a very old one and is very generally entertained about these animals. I refer to the belief that there is a difference of species between the black and the brown or cinnamon-colored individuals of the tribe. This notion is so wide-spread that one often hears it stated that there are three varieties of bears in the United States: the Black Bear, the Cinnamon Bear, and the Grizzly. But this is a most misleading statement. There are many cinnamon-colored bears, but there is no such species as the Cinnamon Bear. Some Black Bears are brown, and so are some grizzlies. Some Black Bears are cinnamon-color, and so are some grizzlies. But the difference between the Black Bears that are black and the Black Bears that are cinnamon-color is the difference between blondes and brunettes; while the difference between a brown-colored grizzly and a brown-colored Black Bear is like the difference between a brown cocker spaniel and a brown setter—one of breed.

The Black Bear has a head broader between the ears in proportion to its length and a muzzle much shorter and sharper than the grizzly. This muzzle is also almost invariably of a grayish or buff color. The animal shows a rather noticeable hump over the small of its back, just in front of the hind legs, and these legs are less straight than those of the grizzly and more sloping at the haunches. Its ears are larger. Its eyes are small and pig-like. Its claws are short, much curved, very stocky at the base, and taper rapidly to a sharp point. They are far less formidable as weapons and far less serviceable as digging implements than the long, slightly curved, blunt claws of the grizzly; but they are perfectly adapted to the uses to which their owner puts them. And the chief of these uses is climbing.

The Black Bear climbs, literally, like a squirrel; and from cubhood to old age spends a considerable portion of his time in trees. He can climb as soon as he can walk and his mother takes clever advantage of the fact. She sends her cubs up a tree whenever she wants them off her hands for a time—uses trees, indeed, very much as human mothers who have no one to watch their children while they work use day nurseries. The first thing a Black Bear mother does when any danger threatens is to send her cubs up a tree. She will then frequently try to induce the enemy to follow her and, when she has eluded him, will return for the cubs. In parts of the country where there are grizzlies, or where there are wolves, she will generally thus dispose of her children before herself going off to feed on berries or other provender. In all my experience I have never known cubs, when thus ordered into retirement by their mother, to come down from the selected tree until she called them. They will climb to the extreme top; run out to the ends of all the branches in turn, chase each other up and down the trunk, and finally curl up in some convenient fork and go to sleep. But though it may be hours before the old bear comes back for them nothing will induce them to set foot on the ground until she comes.

Later in life the Black Bear continues to regard trees as its natural refuge from all dangers. They will invariably “tree” when pursued by dogs, chased by a man on horseback, or otherwise threatened. And a few years ago I witnessed an amusing incident which shows that these are not the only circumstances under which a Black Bear thinks to find safety in its favorite refuge. I was engaged at the time in trying to get some flash-light photographs of grizzlies, and one afternoon, soon after I had gotten my apparatus set up and was waiting for darkness and the appearance of my expected sitters, a violent thunderstorm came up. I had just covered my camera and flash-pan with bark peeled from a couple of small saplings and taken shelter myself under a thick, umbrella-like tree, when I saw a small Black Bear coming through the woods and headed straight for my hiding place. At every flash of lightning he paused and made a dash for the nearest tree, but by the time he got there the flash would be over and he would start on again. Finally, there came a blinding streak of jagged fire, accompanied by a splitting crash, and the small bear made one jump into the tree that happened to be nearest him, went hand over hand to the extreme top, rolled himself into a little ball with his nose between his paws, and never moved until the storm had gone by.

But the Black Bear also resorts to trees of his own accord, using them as a loafing place and even as a sleeping apartment. I have seen one lying prone on his back on a big limb, all four feet in the air, as utterly comfortable and care-free as a fat man in a hammock.

In regions where the grizzly and the Black Bear are both found, the Black Bear spends much of his leisure among the branches and often has special trees that he uses as sleeping quarters. Some of these, from constant use, become as deeply scarred and worn as an old wooden sidewalk in a lumbering town; and I have seen them that appeared to have been used for years.

One sometimes hears it claimed that a Black Bear can only climb a tree around which he can conveniently clasp his front legs, man-fashion. They can climb, and that with almost equal ease, any tree that will hold their weight; from a sapling so small that there is just room for them to sink one set of hind claws above the other in a straight line, to an old giant so big that they can only cling to its face, squirrel-fashion, and behind the trunk of which (also squirrel-fashion) they can hide, circling as you walk around it.

Another curious fact about the Black Bear’s sharp claws is that these invariably match their owner’s hide in color. A black animal always has black claws. A brown one has brown claws. A cinnamon-colored one has cinnamon-colored claws. This is not true of the grizzly. And since, as we will see later, the color of an individual bear often changes with the weathering of its coat, one can approximate the normal, or new-coat, color of the animal from the color of its claws.

In order to show more clearly than mere words could do the character of the Black Bear’s claws and their differences from those of the grizzly, I have photographed a front and hind foot of each animal and also the corresponding tracks made on the ground, and these photographs are here reproduced for comparison and reference. The difference in the fore paws will be seen at a glance; the long, blunt, four-and-a-half to six-inch claws of the grizzly serving to distinguish them unmistakably from the short, sharp, one to one-and-a-half-inch claws of the Black Bear. The hind paws are more nearly alike; but one notices at once how markedly both differ from the front paws and how nearly they approximate tofeet. This is true of all bears.

As, in the West, these two bears are often found in the same localities, and as one of the first things an observer of them should learn is to distinguish between their tracks, I shall point out some of the more salient differences between the two.

On the fore paw of the Black Bear the pad is noticeably rounded in front and somewhat hollowed out behind and is, in a general way, rather kidney-shaped. It does not show the dent that is so plainly seen on the outside of the grizzly’s front paw, and the front edge of it is much narrower. Also, when the track is perfect, the distance between the impress of the toes and the impress of the tips of the claws is much less.

On the hind paw of the Black Bear the front of the pad is also more rounded than that of the grizzly and the heel is blunt instead of pointed. Another difference in shape is shown by the fact that a straight line drawn through the middle toe and along the axis of the foot will, in the Black Bear’s track, exactly hit the heel, while in the grizzly’s track it will fall well to the outside of the heel. The Black Bear’s hind paw is also more deeply dented at the instep than that of the grizzly.

1. Front foot of a black bear2. Front track of a black bear Size, 5 × 4 inches3. Front foot of a grizzly bear4. Front track of a grizzly bear Size, 8 × 4½ inches

The feet of the Black Bear are stockier than those of the grizzly and more powerfully muscled—probably as a result of the animal’s climbing habits. On the other hand their fore legs do not show the wonderful muscular development that is one of the marked characteristics ofUrsus horribilis.

The Black Bear received its name informally, as it were, from the early settlers of New England, where the overwhelming majority of the species happened to be black and where, by dint of saying, “I saw a black bear in the woods this afternoon,” people came to refer to the animal as the Black Bear. Later on the name was sanctioned by scientific baptism and the animal became officially known as the American Black Bear. The designation, however, as we have seen, is by no means universally descriptive. In the East, and in the Middle West, an occasional brown specimen is met with. But when the Rocky Mountain region is reached there is a bewildering variation in the coloring of the species. The majority of the breed are still black, but at least a quarter and perhaps a third of the specimens met with show a different coloration. Of these probably the seal-browns are the most numerous; but I have seen Black Bears of every conceivable shade, from a light cream color, through the yellow browns, to a jet and glossy black never seen in the East. One animal that I watched for some weeks in the mountains of Wyoming was of a curious olive yellow from tip to tail. In north-western Montana and north-eastern Idaho one used to see many mouse-colored, or steel-blue-colored, Black Bears; and around Flat Head Lake, in Montana, I have seen a number of albinos. Curiously enough, albino deer used to be found in this same locality. One sometimes hears it declared that the “true” Black Bear has a white horseshoe on its breast. This is simply a distortion of the fact that many Black Bears, especially black ones, have a “white vest,” varying from a few white hairs to a spot six inches square. Now and then one sees a star, or a shield, or some other oddly shaped mark, and sometimes instead of being white these are cream color or a dirty yellow.

Like the grizzly, the individual Black Bear may vary in color according to the season, the age of its coat, and the weathering that this has undergone. An animal that is a glossy black in the fall may, by the early summer of the following year, be a rusty black; or one that is a rich brown when it first emerges from its winter sleep, may be a faded yellow brown when it has shed its fur and only its hair remains in the beginning of the next summer. But, as far as my observation goes, these changes of color are wholly the result of sun bleach, weathering, and wear and tear.

1. Hind foot of a black bear2. Hind track of a black bear Size, 8 X 4 inches3. Hind foot of a grizzly bear4. Hind track of a grizzly bear Size, 10 X 5½ inches

All fur-bearing animals have both fur and hair—the long guard-hair completely covering and protecting the fine fur underneath. This is of course true of the Black Bear, and it is interesting to note how both hair and fur are changed each year, yet without ever leaving the animal uncovered. About a month after the bear comes out of its winter den the fur begins to drop out, first on the legs and belly, and then on the other parts of the body. During this time the animal takes great satisfaction in scratching itself on stumps and bushes—straddling them on its walks and returning again and again to repeat the operation. From then on the old coat gradually falls out—fur and hair, and at one stage the falling coat hangs in shreds and gives the bear a most wretched and moth-eaten appearance. Meanwhile the new hair is coming in, but not as yet the new fur, so that by early summer the bear has a new suit of clothes, but no underwear. As fall approaches the new fur begins to grow. And by the time the animal is ready to den up for the winter he has a full new coat. This continues to grow during hibernation and a bear’s coat is at its best when the animal first reappears in the spring.

The full-grown Black Bear is, of course, very much smaller than the full-grown grizzly, but it is rather difficult to give any close figures for what might be called a normal specimen. The largest Black Bear that I ever actually weighed, myself, tipped the scales at four hundred and sixty-two pounds. There had been much discussion about this bear, and guesses, before weighing, ranged from three hundred to seven hundred pounds. This gives a good idea of the danger of putting much faith in the estimates of people who have merely seen an animal in the open, and have no actual data for comparison and upon which to base their opinion. I have, first and last, weighed a good many Black Bears, and should say that, when full grown, they range in weight from say two hundred and fifty to say five hundred pounds. In some instances they probably go over that. As a rule the largest specimens I have seen appeared to be in the prime of life and in the best of condition, but I have seen those that gave every evidence of being old and almost decrepit that would not have weighed over two hundred and fifty pounds.

Ben, when I caught him, was about three months old, and would have weighed about five or six pounds. When he was a year old he weighed about fifty pounds. The last time I actually put him on the scales he weighed three hundred and thirty-two pounds, and I believe that four months later, when I gave him away, he would have gone better than four hundred. This three hundred and thirty-two pounds was actual live weight.

What may be the life span of the Black Bear in their free state it is hard to say. They do not arrive at full maturity or growth until their sixth or seventh year, and they probably live well beyond the twenty-five year mark. Mr. William R. Lodge and his father of Cuyahoga Falls, Ohio, have a pair of Black Bears that they have had for twenty-two years, that were six months old when they got them, and that are still healthy and vigorous. There is no reason to suppose that a free animal would not live at least as long as one confined under unnatural conditions.

In the case of the grizzly I have known and watched for years an individual bear in his home mountains that must have been more than twenty years old and that was still in full vigor the last time I saw him. But I have never happened to keep similar track of any individual Black Bear in the open. I have, however, never seen any Black Bear that looked as old as some grizzlies I have seen.

It is a curious fact that in twenty-seven years of coming and going in the joint territory of the grizzly and the Black Bear I have never once come upon the bones or the carcass of a grizzly that had died a natural death. I have, on the other hand, in dens and elsewhere, seen many Black Bear carcasses and skeletons. Once, in the Selkirks, in British Columbia, for instance, we backtracked a Black Bear to the winter den that it had just left, and in this den we found the skeleton of another Black Bear. The one that had wintered there had raked the bones away and had made its bed alongside of them.

Inthis chapter I purpose to bring together in some sort of order the characteristic habits of the Black Bear as I have personally observed them during many years of life in the open. Of course it is never possible to watch a single wild animal from the time it is born until it grows up, lives its natural life out, and dies; nor even to follow one through the activities of an ordinary year of its life. And even if one could do this, one would have to be very careful not to generalize too broadly from the actions of a single individual. But by the time one has seen thousands of Black Bear, let us say, in many parts of their range, in all stages of growth, at all seasons of the year, in undisturbed enjoyment of their liberty, and free to follow their own instincts of work and play, one is able, by putting two and two together, to piece out a pretty accurate knowledge of the species.

One gets, also, a good working understanding of what traits are characteristic of all the normal specimens of the race, of what habits are dependent upon local conditions and vary as these alter, and of what actions are attributable to the personal dispositions of individual animals. For all animals are like men in this, that in minor matters their habits vary with the conditions under which they live, and that in still less noticeable ways the bearing of different individuals under similar circumstances is determined by their personal characters.

What follows in the present chapter, then, is a summing up of the general habits and race characteristics of the Black Bear; and all statements that are not qualified are, in my experience, observable of these animals wherever found.

Of course we all know that the Black Bear is an hibernating animal. That is to say that in most, if not in all, parts of its widely distributed range, it passes a portion of the year asleep and without food or drink, in a den or some sort of make-shift shelter. We shall have much to say later on about this strange habit, and about some of the queer notions people have about it, but we only mention it here because, since little bears are born during the time their mother is in winter quarters, it is necessary to establish winter quarters for them to be born in.

Black Bear cubs, then, are born in the winter den of the mother some time from the latter half of January to the middle of March, according to the latitude and also according to the altitude of the den. The further north a bear happens to live, and the higher up in the hills it happens to live, the later the spring sets in and so the later the animal comes out of its retirement. And the cubs are born from six weeks to two months before the mother comes out.

The little Black Bears, when first born, are absurdly small and pitifully helpless. Their eyes, like those of puppies and kittens, are shut and do not open for some time. They have no teeth and are almost naked, and although the mother may weigh as much as four hundred pounds or more, the whole litter of cubs does not weigh over a couple of pounds, and single cubs vary from eight to eighteen ounces in weight, according to the number in the litter. A Black Bear will have all the way from one to four cubs at a time, and four is not at all uncommon. I have never seen but two grizzlies with four cubs, but I have seen a great many Black Bears with that many. Three, however, seems to be the common number throughout the Rocky Mountain region. Of course meeting a Black Bear in the woods with only one cub, even in the early spring, does not definitely prove that she only gave birth to one; because the others might have died or have been killed. But the records of Black Bears in captivity show that single cubs are not unknown.

The young cubs at first are delicate and for a week or two the mother never leaves them, but curls around them and keeps them warm and broods them. They seem, however, to have excellent lungs, for one can hear them whimper if one has located a bear’s hiding place and approaches it after the cubs are born, an experience that I have had more than once in the mountains. The Messrs. Lodge, of Cuyahoga Falls, Ohio, have supplied their bears with artificial hibernating dens dug in the side of a hill where their bear pit is situated. These are supplied with ventilating shafts, and the owners, for a number of years, have been able to determine the exact date of the birth of a litter, by listening for the querulous voices of the cubs. These gentlemen, by the way, have endeavored in all possible regards to approximate natural conditions in furnishing accommodations for their captive animals; with the result that they have been among the few successful raisers of Black Bears. I will have occasion to refer more than once to the records which these gentlemen have kept during their twenty years’ experience.

For some time, then, after the cubs are born, the family continues shut up in the winter den; but, unlike the grizzly, they frequently, toward the end, leave their shelter before they are ready to abandon it for good. I have seen cases where a Black Bear mother and cubs came out in deep snow, and after wandering about for several miles went back again for a full two weeks before coming out for good. In some cases the mother will come out on these preliminary excursions before the young are able to walk. But they do not either habitually or finally abandon the den until they can get down to the bottoms where the snow is gone and the vegetation has started sprouting. This, by the way, if you happen to live in the neighborhood, is an excellent time to keep a sharp watch on your young pigs.

At this stage the cubs weigh about five or six pounds and, although it is some months before they begin to forage at all for themselves, their development is now much more rapid. I have frequently watched old Black Bears with cubs in the early summer, but have never seen the young ones show any apparent interest in what the mother was eating, and hence I believe that in their natural state they are six or seven months old before they begin the process of being weaned. But although about the time the berries are ripe the cubs take to foraging pretty generally on their own account, they continue to nurse right through the summer and until they either den up with the mother in the fall or, as I think is more usual, until they are turned adrift by her before she herself dens up alone. In fact I have seen them, late in the year, and when they were of a size that should have made them ashamed of such dependence, pestering their mother as she walked, and getting occasional cuffs for their persistence.

Ben showed no concern whatever over grown-up bear dishes until the berry season came around, when he suddenly developed an appetite for outside board, and not only seemed to want all the various things the hills provided, but would howl lustily if he did not get them.

The Black Bear, while not much of a traveller, wanders over a fairly wide range in search of various foods in their season; yet, broadly speaking, is pretty apt to live and die in the general neighborhood of its birth. They wander both day and night, although when they are in a region where grizzlies are also to be found they are careful to disappear about the time that the latter, which are much more nocturnal in habit, may be expected to come out. When a Black Bear has young cubs she will stay for a week or two at a time in one place, and will scratch a nest or bed among the leaves or in a thicket and lie up there between feeds with her youngsters.

There are few things more interesting than to watch a bear with her cubs when she thinks herself alone. They are the gayest and most playful little balls of fur, and she will let them maul her and worry her and pretend to fight her. But a Black Bear does not, as the grizzly does, talk to her cubs all the time. A grizzly will walk along through the woods with two or three cubs carrying on what appears to be a connected conversation. She grunts and whines and makes noises at them that sound as though they were full of advice and admonition. They are doubtless merely encouragement or assurances of her presence. But the Black Bear is silent except in cases of danger or emergency. Then she, too, “speaks” to her youngsters, and they never seem to be at a loss for her meaning. At any rate they go up a tree at the word of command, and come down again at the grunt that means, “All right now, come on.”

A mother and two cubs

As the cubs grow larger and stronger the mother wanders farther afield with them, and, from sacrificing all her time and desires to their needs and safety, comes gradually first to tolerate, and toward the end of the season rather to resent, their persistent demands upon her. One imagines that it is with a final indifference and relief that she sends them off to shift for themselves. For, like other animals, a bear, while showing the most devoted and courageous love for her children while they are helpless, has a very short-lived affection for them once they cease to need her protection. In one instance the Lodges tried the experiment of returning some half-grown cubs to their mother after a comparatively short separation, during which she and her mate had been together in the main pit. The two cubs had only been by themselves for a few weeks, and before they were finally returned to the pen with their mother they were kept for some days separated from her by nothing more than an iron grating. Yet as soon as they were put into the pit with her she seized one of them and killed it, and was starting up her exercise tree after the other which had taken refuge there when the owners interfered and rescued the youngster. Here, as I see it, was a case of artificial separation which, once the mother had accepted, placed her, as far as her own feelings went, in exactly the same frame of mind toward her cubs as though she had abandoned them in the natural course of things and their company had afterward been forced upon her.

Neither the Black Bear nor the grizzly is really a sociable animal, but free Black Bears occasionally play together, which grizzlies never seem to do. Under ordinary circumstances, however, Black Bears have a funny trick of pretending not to see each other when they meet. If one of them comes into a marshy meadow or a small open glade in the woods where one or two others are already feeding, he will make the most laughable pretence of not seeing them. He will stop at the edge of the opening and go through all the motions of examining the country, carefully looking, however, everywhere but in the direction of the other bears; all of which is vastly amusing to one familiar with the keenness of his senses and the alertness of his attention, and the practical impossibility of getting within seeing or hearing distance of him without his knowing it. Meanwhile the bears already on the ground play their part in the little comedy with all the good will in the world. They have undoubtedly been aware of the approach of the newcomer long before any human watcher of the scene could have suspected it. But they give no outward sign of being aware of the new arrival. If, however, the intruder had happened to have been a grizzly they would undoubtedly have taken to their heels or taken refuge in the nearest tree with loud puffings and snortings some minutes before he reached the scene. Yet these same bears, once they have fed their fill, will frequently go to playing together as one never sees the grizzlies do. Two of them will stand up and wrestle, roll each other over and over, chase each other about, and generally have a fine romp. As a rule, however, this sort of play takes place between bears of different sizes, and the smaller one sometimes gets well thrown about and mauled.

One of the most entertaining experiences that I ever had in the woods was connected with just such an after-dinner romp between two Black Bears. I was photographing grizzlies in the Rocky Mountains in Wyoming, and had set up my camera and flash-light apparatus near a likely looking trail. My flash-pan was placed on top of a ten-foot pole stuck in the ground under a small pine tree, and a fine wire was run from the switch that operated the apparatus across the trail and tied to a convenient bush. I had completed my arrangements about half-past four in the afternoon and had concealed myself in a mass of fallen timber some seventy-five or eighty feet away prepared to wait for dusk.

Soon after I got settled I noticed two Black Bears in a little clearing to my left and, for something to do, I set to watching them. For some time they fed quietly here and there and then they took to playing. One of them was quite a bit larger than the other, but the smaller one was game and though he got considerably the worst of the rough sport they kept the play up for quite a while. Suddenly, however, in the very midst of an excited wrestling match, the little fellow drew away, stood up on his hind legs and listened for a moment, and then went up a convenient tree, his companion following his example and taking refuge in another one. I was much interested over this turn of affairs and kept a close watch to see what was going to happen next. But, after quite a little wait, the bears seemed to make up their minds that it had been a false alarm and, coming down from their respective trees, they resumed their rough and tumble fun. Not for long, however. It was only a minute or two before they repeated their former maneuvers, and this time they appeared to have no doubt as to the imminence of danger. They had worked their way over to my side of the clearing, and when they broke for shelter the little bear took refuge in the small pine tree under which my flash-pan stood, his companion selecting a larger tree a little further away. And sure enough, almost as soon as they were well off the ground an old grizzly came stalking dignifiedly out of the woods and down the trail upon which my camera was set. But he had evidently noticed that something questionable was going on, and he walked over toward the tree where the larger bear was sitting. The latter, conscious of his advantage of position, greeted the grizzly’s approach with a volley of puffs and snorts, and after looking around him in a disdainful sort of way, the grizzly sauntered over toward the smaller bear’s tree, where the same performance was gone through. Here, however, the grizzly found something that aroused his curiosity more keenly than a mere Black Bear, for he discovered my pole and flash-pan. He stood up on his hind legs and easily sniffed the top of the pan and then, discovering the wire, he followed it without touching it away from the pine tree and across the trail to where it was fastened. Then, his curiosity getting the better of him, he raised one front paw and pulled the bush toward him, whereupon the charge of powder exploded with a huge puff of smoke, and as I stood up in my retreat to get a better view of the outcome I caught a glimpse with one eye of a big grizzly turning a double back somersault, while with the other I saw a small Black Bear take one desperate leap from the branches of his pine tree and disappear into the wood in huge leaps.

When the last act of this little comedy began I had risen to my feet in order to get a clear view of what took place, and when the smaller Black Bear had disappeared into the woods I saw that his larger companion had become aware of my presence. I once more concealed myself among the branches, but the Black Bear in the tree kept an eye in my direction and when, at the end of five minutes or so, the smaller bear returned cautiously to the scene of his recent discomfiture and began to coax his friend to come down and resume their play, it was amusing to watch the cross-purposes at which they found themselves. For the one up the tree who knew of my presence was afraid to come down and yet unable to explain the circumstances to the one on the ground, and he in his turn was utterly unable to make head or tail of the other’s actions. He finally gave up the attempt to persuade him and wandered away into the woods, and at the end of half an hour or so the other bear, evidently with serious misgivings, came carefully down the opposite side of his tree and made off at the double quick.

The Black Bear’s habits of hibernation are less rigid and apparently less developed than the grizzly’s. To begin with, they are far less industrious in providing themselves with a den, and less particular in having it weatherproof and well concealed. The grizzly habitually seeks out some natural cave or shelter in the rocks, high up in the mountains, often above snow line. This he prepares for occupancy by raking into it whatever he can find in the way of leaves or dried grasses, and sometimes stops up with earth and stones such holes or openings as would expose the interior to the weather. The Black Bear is far less particular. Any old place that offers him some fair promise of protection and privacy seems good enough for him. He dens up at much lower altitudes, goes into winter quarters later and comes out much earlier. One of his favorite devices is to dig a hole under the butt end of a fallen tree, rake a few leaves into the opening, and then crawl in himself. Sometimes, when the tree is a good-sized one and the roots hold the butt of it a little clear of the ground, he is saved the trouble of digging at all and makes a sort of nest in the space beneath the trunk. At other times he will dig a hole in the soft ground, and, of course, occasionally uses caves or other natural retreats if he happens to find them handy. Ben, it will be recalled, dug under the floor of my barn when it came to be his bedtime.

The time for denning up varies with the locality and the weather, and throughout the North-west is anywhere from November 1 to January 1. Unlike the grizzly, however, the Black Bear will often come out for a while if a warm spell follows his denning up. The Lodges note that their bears, once they are settled in their winter caves, never seem to pay any further attention to the weather. But while this is probably the rule, I have seen Black Bears out in some numbers late in December after there had been severe freezing weather during which all bears had denned up.

There is some difference of opinion as to their habits further south, and some authorities claim that at the extreme southern limit of their range the bears belonging to the Black Bear group do not hibernate at all. I incline, however, from what I have seen—or rather failed to see—to the opposite belief; for in parts of Old Mexico where, in the spring, I have seen many bears, I have again in the winter time failed to see either them or their fresh tracks, and upon making inquiry of the Indians have been told that they were asleep.

Moreover, Mr. Charles Sheldon, of New York, who for fifteen years has made a close study of bears in their natural state and has spent four years in Mexico studying bear and sheep, informs me that all the bears den up almost as early in those mountains as they do further north, and that he has never seen bears in Mexico come out of winter quarters earlier than in the United States.

There has been much scientific discussion as to the nature of this long sleep, and also much popular misconception in regard to its outward manifestations. I do not aspire to a voice in the former, but can speak from considerable experience in regard to the latter. Many, perhaps most, people seem to think that a bear that has denned up for the winter is in some mysterious, and more or less complete state of coma; that its breathing is all but suspended, and that it would be difficult, even by violence, to rouse it. They are very far from the truth. Bears sleep, but are easily roused, quick to scent danger, and ready to abandon their retreat and look up a new one if they think it necessary.

Ben, at any time during the winter, would rouse if I called him, and would even come to the mouth of his lair for a moment to greet me. I could, moreover, hear him breathing, and sometimes hear him move and readjust himself to a more comfortable position. He was a very lazy, stupid, sleepy bear; but never too stupid or sleepy to answer my call.

One fall in Washington, near Colville in the Calispell Mountains, while after deer, I noticed a strange mass of dead leaves, small sticks, pine needles, and other forest refuse gathered under the tangled trunks of a windfall, where a number of trees had been blown down crisscross. My curiosity was piqued by the queer-looking affair and I climbed along one of the tree trunks to see what it was. Suddenly, as I got almost over it, the whole mass began to shake and quiver and out came an old Black Bear and two cubs. This was the only time that I ever actually knew of a Black Bear and her cubs having denned up together. And I have never seen more than a dozen cases where it seemed probable that they had. Later on on this same trip I saw seven other Black Bear sleeping places, all in similar situations under tree trunks or tangled down-timber.

Only a year ago, up at Priest Lake, in Idaho, some friends and myself came across the tracks of a cougar, and, having gone back for dogs, we returned and put them on its trail. We were in full chase along the side of a mountain when one of the dogs attracted my attention by the way he acted. He turned aside, rushed to a dead tree that lay along the ground, and began excitedly sniffing at one end of it. I knew that the cougar could not be there and went over to see what was attracting the dog’s attention, and saw instantly that a Black Bear had been denned up under the log, but, disturbed by the dog’s approach, had broken out and made off down the mountain in a foot and a half of snow.

These are merely examples of many such experiences, and I have more than once followed the trail of a bear and seen where it had made itself a new retreat.

We know, since they lay up no store of provisions, that the bear does not eat during its long retirement, and although, in the north, it would be possible for it to provide itself with water by eating the snow that shuts it in, we know that bears hibernating in captivity (a thing by the way that they do not often do) neither eat nor drink.

One odd fact about the whole proceeding is that all bears of the same class in the same locality go into winter quarters and emerge from them within a few days of each other. In the Selkirk Mountains in British Columbia, I have seen where six grizzlies had broken their way through several feet of snow out of six different caves on the side of a single mountain all in one night. In localities where both species are found, the Black Bear come out from one to two months earlier than the grizzlies, and in both species the males emerge two weeks or more before the females with new cubs. But all of each kind come out within a day or two of each other.

I incline to the belief that in the majority of cases the Black Bear, when in freedom, breeds every year. Most authorities on bears who base their opinions upon observations made on captive animals, claim that both the grizzly and the Black Bear breed annually. But a long series of observations and the closest possible attention given to this point has absolutely convinced me that it is the very rare exception when a free female grizzly breeds oftener than once in two years. I have seen many hundreds of grizzly mothers with cubs in the open, and fully as many of them were followed by yearling cubs as by spring cubs. But although (the Black Bear being much more numerous than the grizzly) I have seen many more Black Bears with cubs than grizzlies with cubs, I have never seen more than a dozen Black Bear mothers followed by yearling cubs.

I have therefore been forced to conclude that it is the habit of the Black Bear to wean its cubs and abandon them before denning up the first fall. In the case of the grizzly the mother and the cubs den up together the fall following the latter’s birth, and run together during the following summer, and it is not until late in the second season that the mother turns the cubs adrift to shift for themselves. This family of young grizzlies then usually den up together and continue to run together the third summer, at the close of which the litter disbands and the individuals belonging to it take up their separate lives. I have also seen a few litters of yearling Black Bears still running in company without their mother; but as this is by no means a common sight, I believe that ordinarily Black Bear cubs den up separately after they leave their mother at the close of their first summer.

Inasmuch, however, as I have seen a few Black Bear mothers followed by yearling cubs, I assume that in these cases the mother and cubs had denned up together in the same manner that the grizzlies habitually do. And I once actually found an old Black Bear and two cubs so settled for the winter. I have also tracked an old grizzly and her cubs to where they had gone into winter quarters together, and have seen where a grizzly mother and her year-old family had emerged from hibernation in company the second spring. I have also often seen where a litter of two-year-old grizzly cubs had wintered together in one cave after leaving their mother in their third fall, but I have never seen any actual evidence of young Black Bears wintering together in this manner.

I believe that the explanation of this very striking difference of habit between the Black and the grizzly bears in the matter of breeding annually or biennially, is to be found in their different degrees of fierceness, and in the resulting fact that the Black Bear cubs are not so long in danger from the evil tempers and bloodthirsty dispositions of the grown males of their kind.

A new-born cub of either species would be instantly killed, and probably eaten, by any old male that got the opportunity; and, unnatural as this seems to us, it is true of many or most carnivorous, or partly carnivorous, animals. It is true of rats, as most boys who have bred white rats have had occasion to discover. The memory of the habit, at least, survives in the fierceness with which even a pet dog with puppies will keep the father of them away from her basket. In all zoological gardens it is necessary to separate the male bears from the female at and after the birth of cubs, and the habits of mother bears in the woods show that their instincts warn them very effectually of the wisdom of this course.

But while the Black Bear mother shows no great concern for the safety of her cubs after they have reached the age of five or six months, the grizzly mother continues, with good reason, to evade or resent the approach of other members of her tribe till well into the second year. I have on two different occasions known of a male grizzly’s killing and eating a cub that had been left fastened by a chain near a camp; and in one instance I came upon a grizzly that had just killed a female and had eaten her two cubs. She had been caught in a steel trap set by a trapper, and her two cubs were with her. The male, finding her in this predicament, had doubtless attacked the cubs, and when, hampered as she was by the trap and clog, she had attempted to defend them, he had killed her too.

A female grizzly with young is one of the most dangerous animals in the world. She will allow no other bear of either sex to approach either her or them. And this invariable attitude of her fully accounts, to my mind, for her failure to breed while the young are still with her. But the Black Bear mother is not only a comparatively inoffensive animal at all times, but she seems to have no such lasting distrust of other members of her own species. I have often seen an old Black Bear asleep in the branches of a tree with her five or six-months-old cubs frisking around on the ground, when she must have been well aware that there were Black Bears of the opposite sex in the neighborhood. This is not to be put down to indifference on her part. It simply means that the necessity for watchfulness has passed. It therefore becomes easily understandable that the Black Bear mother can afford, without risk to her half-grown cubs, to breed every year in the open; while the grizzly does not, until her young are fully able to take care of themselves unaided, dare to associate with their possible enemies—the cantankerous males of the tribe.

The records of the Lodges contain one or two interesting notes relating to these matters. The first time that their original pair of Black Bears bred they did not separate the mother and father, and the first intimation that they had of the birth of cubs was the appearance of the father at the mouth of the den with a dead cub in its mouth. After that they took care to give the female separate quarters. Again, the only two occasions during the last sixteen or eighteen years on which this female has failed to breed have been in years when her cubs were allowed to remain with her throughout the summer, and when, as the owners state, she was so taken up with them that she refused to have anything to do with her mate.

This is exactly the attitude that my observations have led me to assume as habitual on the part of the free grizzly. And I imagine that the Black Bear mother adopted it in this case because, in the narrow quarters of a twenty-foot bear-pit, she was afraid to relax her vigilance, as she doubtless would have felt justified in doing in her natural surroundings.

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