WOLVERINE (Gulo luscus)

WHITE, OR ARCTIC, FOXPRIBILOF BLUE FOX

WOLVERINE

The wolverine, or carcajou of the Canadian voyageurs, is a circumpolar species belonging to the northern forested areas of both continents. In North America it formerly ranged from the northern limit of trees south to New England and New York, and down the Rocky Mountains to Colorado, and down the Sierra Nevada to near Mount Whitney, California. It is a low, squat, heavy-bodied animal, with strong legs and feet armed with sharp claws, and is the largest and most formidable of the weasel family.

The wolverine is extraordinarily powerful and possesses what at times appears to be a diabolical cunning and persistence. It frequently trails trappers along their trap lines, eating or destroying their catches and at times hiding their traps. It is a tireless wanderer, and the hunter or traveler in the northern wilds always has this marauder in mind and is put to the limit of his wits to provide caches for his provisions or other supplies which it can not despoil.

What it can not eat it is likely to carry away and hide. A wolverine has often been known to expend a surprising amount of labor in apparently deliberate mischief, even carrying numerous articles away from camps and hiding them in different places. It sometimes trails a traveler for many miles through winter snow, always out of sight, but alert to take advantage of any carelessness in leaving game or other food unguarded.

Mingled with these mischievous traits the wolverine possesses a savage ferocity combined with a muscular power which renders it a dreaded foe of all but the largest animals of its domain. When guarding her young, the female is no mean foe, even for a man.

As a consequence of its mental and physical character, the wolverine, more than any other animal of the north, has impressed itself on the imagination of both native and white hunters and travelers. A vast amount of folk-lore has grown up about it and both Indians and Eskimos make offerings to propitiate its malignant spirit. The Alaskan Eskimos trim the hoods of their fur garments with a strip of wolverine fur, and Eskimo hunters wear belts and hunting bags made of the skin of the legs and head, that they may acquire some of the power of the animal from which these came.

The value of the handsome brown fur of the wolverine, as well as the enmity the animal earns among hunters and trappers, has resulted in its being so persistently hunted that it has become extinct over much of its former territory, and wherever still found it is much reduced in numbers.

The walruses, or “sea horses” of the old navigators, are the strangest and most grotesque of all sea mammals. Their large, rugged heads, armed with two long ivory tusks, and their huge swollen bodies, covered with hairless, wrinkled, and warty skin, gives them a formidable appearance unlike that of any other mammal. They are much larger than most seals, the old males weighing from 2,000 to 3,000 pounds and the females about two-thirds as much.

These strange beasts are confined to the Arctic Ocean and the adjacent coasts and islands and are most numerous about the borders of the pack ice. Two species are known, one belonging to the Greenland seas, while the other, the Pacific walrus, is limited to Bering Sea and the Arctic basin beyond Bering Straits.

The Pacific walruses migrate southward through Bering Straits with the pack ice in fall and spend the winter in Bering Sea and along the adjacent coast of eastern Asia. In spring they return northward through the straits and pass the breeding season about the ice pack, where they congregate in great herds. One night in July, 1881, the U. S. steamerCorwincruised for hours along the edge of the ice pack off the Arctic coast of Alaska and we saw an almost unbroken line of walruses hauled out on the ice, forming an extended herd which must have contained tens of thousands.

Walruses were formerly very abundant in Bering Sea, especially about the Fur Seal Islands and along the coast north of the Peninsula of Alaska, but few now survive there. Owing to the value of their thick skins, blubber, and ivory tusks, they have been subjected to remorseless pursuit since the early Russian occupation of their territory and have, as a result, become extinct in parts of their former range and the species is now in serious danger of extermination.

Like many of the seals, walruses have a strong social instinct, and although usually seen in herds they are not polygamous. They feed mainly on clams or other shellfish, which they gather on the bottom of the shallow sea. On shore or on the ice they move slowly and with much difficulty, but in the water they are thoroughly at home and good swimmers. When hauled out on land or ice, they usually lie in groups one against the other. They are stupid beasts and hunters have no difficulty in killing them with rifles at close range.

Walruses have a strongly developed maternal instinct and show great devotion and disregard of their own safety in defending the young. The Eskimos at Cape Vancouver, Bering Sea, hunt them in frail skin-covered kyaks, using ivory- or bone-pointed spears and seal-skin floats. Several hunters told me of exciting and dangerous encounters they had experienced with mother walruses. If the young are attacked, or even approached, the mother does not hesitate to charge furiously. The hunters confess that on such occasions there is no option but to paddle for their lives. Occasionally an old walrus is unusually vindictive and, after forcing a hunter to take refuge on the ice, will remain patrolling the vicinity for a long time, roaring and menacing the object of her anger.

When boats approach the edge of the ice where walruses are hauled up, the animals plunge into the sea in a panic and rise all aboutthe intruders, bellowing and rushing about, rearing their huge heads and gleaming white tusks high out of water in an alarming manner. As a rule, however, they are timid and seek only to escape, although occasionally, in their excitement, one has been known to attack a boat and by a single blow of its tusks to do serious damage and endanger the crew.

Several species of fur seals are known, all of them limited to the southern oceans or the coasts and islands of the North Pacific. All are strongly gregarious and formerly sought their island breeding grounds in vast numbers. At one period, soon after the purchase of Alaska, it was estimated that several million fur seals were on the Pribilof Islands in one season. During the height of their abundance the southern fur seals were equally numerous.

The value of their skins and the facility with which these animals may be slaughtered have resulted in the practical extermination of all but those which breed under governmental protection on the Russian islands off the coast of Kamchatka and on the Pribilof Islands in Alaska. Owing mainly to wasteful pelagic sealing prior to the recent international treaty, the numbers on both these groups of islands were much reduced.

The Alaska fur seal is a migratory species, wintering down the Pacific coast as far as northern California. The migrations of these seals are of remarkable interest. In spring they leave the northwest coast and many of them travel steadily across more than two thousand miles of the North Pacific. For days at a time they swim through a roaring gale-swept sea, under dense, low-hanging clouds, and with unerring certainty strike certain passages in the Aleutian Islands, through which they press to their breeding grounds, more than 100 miles beyond, on the small, fog-hidden Pribilof Islands.

Fur seals are extremely polygamous and the old males, which weigh from 400 to 500 pounds, “haul up” first on the breeding beaches. Each bull holds a certain area, and as the females, only one-fifth his size, come ashore they are appropriated by the nearest bulls until each “beach master” gathers a harem, sometimes containing more than 100 members.

Here the young are born, and after the mating season the seals, which have remained ashore without food from four to six weeks, return to the water. The mothers go and come, and each is able to find her young with certainty among thousands of apparently identical woolly black “pups.”

From the ages of one to four years fur seals are extremely playful. They are marvelous swimmers and frolic about in pursuit of one another, now diving deep and then, one after the other, suddenly leaping high above the surface in graceful curves, like porpoises. Squids and fish of various species are their main food. Their chief natural enemy is the killer whale, which follows their migrations and haunts the sea about their breeding grounds, taking heavy toll among them.

Since the discovery of the Pribilof Islands by the Russians the fur seal herds there have yielded more than five million recorded skins. A census of the herds in 1914 gave these islands nearly three hundred thousand seals. Now that pelagic sealing has been suppressed and the herds are being protected, there is every reason to expect that the seals will increase rapidly to something like their former numbers.

Sea-lions are near relatives of the fur seals and have a nearly similar distribution, both in far southern and northern seas. The males of the several species are more than twice the size of the females and are characterized by an enormous development of neck and shoulders. The Steller sea-lion is the largest member of the group, the old bulls weighing from 1,200 to 1,500 pounds. All are extremely gregarious and polygamous.

The Steller sea-lions belong to the North Pacific, whence they range in winter as far south as the coasts of California and Japan. In spring they migrate northward to their breeding grounds among the Aleutian, Pribilof, and other rocky islands of the North Pacific. The early histories of this region record their great abundance, including several hundred thousand which were reported to have congregated to breed each season on the Pribilof Islands. Although less valuable than the fur-seal, persistent hunting has gradually reduced their numbers on these islands until in 1914 only a few hundred remained.

In summer range they are less limited than the fur seals, occurring in herds about the shores of many rocky islands along the mainland coast of the North Pacific and the Aleutian chain.

Since the primitive days before the arrival of civilized men in their haunts, sea-lions were of the greatest economic importance to the Aleutian Islanders and other coast natives. Food and fuel were obtained from their flesh and blubber; coverings for boats were made of their skins; water-proof overshirts of their intestines; boot soles from the tanned skin of their flippers; trimmings of fancy garments from their tanned gullets and bristles, and thread from their sinews.

They are preëminently animals of the most rugged of shorelines and the stormiest of seas, being superbly powerful beasts with extraordinary vitality. The ease with which they pass through a smother of pounding seas to mount their rugged resting places is an admirable exhibition of skill and strength. The males have a bellowing roar, which rises continually from the herds on the rocks in savage unison with the booming of the sea against the base of their refuge.

The harems of the bulls on Pribilof Islands rarely exceed a dozen members, which areunder less strict discipline than the harems of the fur seals. The old bulls, especially during the mating season, are aggressive and savage fighters, inflicting severe wounds on one another. At all times they are more courageous and belligerent than fur seals, and hunters driving parties of them back from the beach on the Pribilofs approach them with extreme caution, to avoid the dangerous charges of angry bulls. It is reported that an umbrella opened and closed suddenly in the faces of the old sea-lions appears to terrify them more than any other weapon and is used successfully in drives. At sea they have only a single known enemy to fear—the fierce killer whale.

PACIFIC WALRUS

ALASKA FUR SEAL

STELLER SEA-LION

Sea otters, distant relatives of land otters, are heavy-bodied animals, about 4 feet long, with broad webbed hind feet. When in the water they have a general resemblance to seals, whose mode of life is similar to theirs. Their fur is extremely dense and on the skins of adult males is almost black, closely sprinkled with long white-tipped hairs. The fur of prime skins has a silky luster, equaled in beauty by only the finest silver-tipped fox skins. For centuries sea-otter fur has been highly prized and single skins have brought more than $1,000 in the London market.

Otters are limited to the coasts of the North Pacific, where formerly they were incredibly abundant all the way from the shores and islands of Lower California to the Aleutians, and thence along the Asiatic coast to the Kuriles. Through excessive hunting, they are now extinct along most of this extended coast-line.

In the days of the Russian occupation of Alaska the discovery of the abundance of sea otters led to intense activity in their pursuit. Otter-hunting expeditions were organized by the Russians along the storm-swept coast from Unalaska to Sitka, sailing vessels being used as convoys for hundreds of Aleut hunters in their skin-covered boats. The loss of life among the hunters under their brutal taskmasters was appalling and resulted in seriously and permanently reducing the native population of the Aleutian Islands. At the same time enormous numbers of sea-otter skins were taken. Afterward both English and American ships engaged in the pursuit of otters farther down the coast.

The first year after the discovery of the Pribilof Islands the records show that 5,000 sea otters were taken there. Many expeditions in other directions secured from one to several thousand skins. When sea otters were most abundant they were found all down the coast, even in San Francisco Bay, and one American trading vessel obtained 7,000 skins in a few weeks from the natives of the northern coast of Lower California.

The otters formerly frequented the shores of rocky islands and outlying reefs, but constant persecution has driven the few survivors to remain almost constantly at sea, where they seek resting places among kelp beds. They are now excessively shy and, aided by keen eyes and an acute sense of smell, are difficult to approach. When anything excites their curiosity they commonly raise the body upright, the head high above water, and gaze steadily at the object. If alarmed, they dive and reappear at a long distance.

Otter hunters report the animals very playful in pleasant weather, and sometimes floating on their backs and playing with pieces of kelp. The mother is devoted to her young and is said to play with it in the water for hours at a time.

All efforts to rear the young in captivity have failed. The food of the sea otter is mainly of shellfish of various kinds, secured by them from the bottom of the sea.

Practically the only sea otters left among the hordes which once frequented the American shores of the North Pacific are now scattered along the Aleutian Islands. Government regulations prohibit their being hunted and it is hoped that enough still remain to restock the wild and stormy sea where they have their home.

Sea-elephants are the largest and among the most remarkable of the seals. Two species are known—one from islands on the borders of the Antarctic Ocean and the other from the Pacific coast of Upper and Lower California. The northern species formerly existed in vast numbers along the coast and among outlying islands from Point Reyes, north of San Francisco, south to Cedros Island, but is now reduced to a single small herd living about Guadalupe Island, off Lower California.

The old males attain a length of 22 feet or more and are huge, ungainly beasts, moving with difficulty on land, but with ease and grace in the water. The name sea-elephant is obviously derived from the broad flexible snout of the males, which, when relaxed, hangs 6 or 8 inches below the muzzle. This curious proboscis can be moved about and raised vertically, giving the animal a strange appearance. The males have a loud roar like the bellowing of an ox.

The breeding season extends from February to June, and during this period these seals are far more numerous on shore than at any other time. They are gregarious in habits and formerly hauled up in herds on the islands or on remote and inaccessible beaches of the mainland. On shore they are sluggish, having none of the alertness shown by many other seals. They lie supine on the sand and permit a man to walk quietly up and touch them without showing signs of fear. When attacked by sealers or otherwise alarmed, however, they become panic-stricken and make ungainly efforts to escape, but quickly become exhausted by the exertion necessary to move their greatbodies. Their only natural enemy appears to be the killer whale.

Between 1855 and 1870 the great numbers of northern sea-elephants, combined with their helplessness on shore and the value of their oil, attracted numerous sealing and whaling ships to the coast of Lower California. The resulting slaughter reduced these animals from swarming abundance to a few scattered herds. Since then their numbers have steadily decreased, and there is a serious probability that these strange and interesting habitants of the sea will soon disappear forever.

The small remaining herd on Guadalupe Island is without protection and lies at the mercy of wanton hunters. The people of the coastal towns of California should exert themselves to discourage hunters from killing these seals, since the only hope for the preservation of this noteworthy species lies in an awakened public sentiment in its favor. Even within recent years they have occasionally visited the Santa Barbara Islands, California, and if the existing survivors can be saved they may again become resident there.

The harbor seal, one of the smallest of the hair seals, attaining a length of only 5 or 6 feet, is one of the most widely distributed and best known of its kind. It is a circumpolar species, formerly ranging well south on the European coast and to the Carolinas on the American side of the Atlantic, though now more restricted in its southern extension. On the North Pacific it ranges south to the coast of Japan on the Asiatic side and to Lower California on the American side.

Throughout its range the harbor seal haunts the coast-line, frequenting rocky points, islets, bays, harbors, and the lower courses of rivers. It commonly frequents the sandy bars exposed at low tide about the mouths of rivers, and has been known to ascend the St. Lawrence to Lake Champlain and Lake Ontario, and the Yukon to several hundred miles above its mouth. It is still a common and well-known animal on the coast of Maine and eastern Canada and about many harbors on the Pacific coast. It appears to be a non-migratory species and in northern waters frequents the pack ice along shore in winter. Where the pack is unbroken, the seal makes breathing holes through the ice, which it visits at intervals, and where it is hunted by the Eskimos.

It is not polygamous and is not so strongly gregarious as some of the other seals. That it has some social instinct is evident, however, since it commonly gathers in small herds on the same sand spits, rocky points, and islets. The young are born in early spring and at first are entirely covered with a woolly white coat. The mother is devoted to the “pup” and shows the deepest anxiety if danger threatens.

The flesh and blubber of this seal are highly prized by the Eskimos as the most palatable of all the seals, and the skin is valued for clothing and for making strong rawhide lines used for nets and other purposes. On the Alaskan coast of Bering Sea in fall the Eskimos capture many seals in nets set off rocky points, just as gill nets are set in the same places in spring for salmon.

Owing to the presence of this seal along so many inhabited coasts, much has been written concerning its habits, especially as observed about the shores of the British Isles. Where not disturbed it shows little fear and will swim about boats or ships, raising its head high out of water and gazing steadily with large intelligent eyes at the object of its curiosity; but when hunted it becomes exceedingly shy and wary. All who have held the harbor seal in captivity agree in praising its intelligence. It becomes very docile, often learning a variety of amusing tricks, and develops great affection for its keeper.

The small size of this seal and its limited numbers are elements which save it from extensive commercial hunting and may preserve it far into the future to add life and interest to many a rocky coast.

The black head, gray body, and large dorsal ring of the male harp seal are strongly distinctive markings in a group generally characterized by plain dull colors. The harp seal is a large species, the old males weighing from 600 to 800 pounds.

It is nearly circumpolar in distribution, but its area of greatest abundance extends from the Gulf of St. Lawrence to Greenland, and thence eastward in that part of the Arctic Ocean lying north of Europe and western Siberia. Its reported presence in the Arctic basin north of Bering Straits or along the coasts to the southward is yet to be confirmed. It is an offshore species, migrating southward with the ice pack in fall to the coast of Newfoundland and returning northward with the pack after the breeding season in spring. For a day or two during the fall migration, when these seals are passing certain points on the coast of Labrador, the sea is said to be thickly dotted with their heads as far as the eye can reach, all moving steadily southward.

The harp seal is extremely gregarious and gathers on the pack ice well offshore during March and April to breed. The main breeding grounds are off Newfoundland and off Jan Mayen Land in the Arctic. During the breeding season, in the days of their abundance, they gathered in enormous closely packed herds, sometimes containing several hundred thousand animals and covering the ice for miles.

SEA OTTER

NORTHERN SEA-ELEPHANT, OR ELEPHANT SEAL

From all accounts it is evident that originally there were millions of these animals in the North Atlantic and Arctic Oceans. Their gregarious habits made them an easy prey, and the value of their skins and blubber formedthe basis for a great industry. Hundreds of vessels were sent out from north European and American ports and nearly 1,000,000 harp seals were killed during each breeding season. This tremendous slaughter and its attendant waste has resulted in the disappearance of these seals from many of their former haunts and has alarmingly reduced their numbers everywhere. Some are still killed off the coast of Newfoundland, but the sealing industry, now insignificant as compared with its former estate, is practically dead.

HARBOR SEAL, OR LEOPARD SEALHARP SEAL, SADDLE-BACK, OR GREENLAND SEAL

The hunting of harp and other seals on the pack ice is an occupation calling for such splendid qualities of virile hardihood in the face of constant danger to life that its brutality has been little considered. In this perilous work great numbers of hunters have been cast away and frozen miserably on the drifting ice and many a sealing ship has been lost with all hands.

Off Newfoundland the young harp seal is born early in March, wearing a woolly white coat. At first it is tenderly cared for by its mother, but before the end of April it has learned to swim and is left to care for itself. The young do not enter the water until they are nearly two weeks old and require several days of practice before they learn to swim well. The adults are notable for their swiftness in the water. In the tremendous herds of these seals the continual cries uttered by old and young is said to produce a steady roar which may be heard for several miles. Their food is mainly fish. Man is their worst enemy, but they are also preyed upon by sharks and killer whales.

The broad-banded markings of the male ribbon seal render it the handsomest and most strongly characterized of the group of hair seals to which it belongs. Its size is about that of the harbor seal. Its range extends from the Aleutian Islands, on the coast of Alaska, and from the Kuriles, on the Asiatic shore of the Pacific, north to Bering Straits.

This seal is so scarce and its home is in such remote and little-frequented waters that its habits are almost unknown. Apparently it is even less gregarious than the harbor seal and usually occurs singly, although a few may be seen together, where individuals chance to meet. There are records of its capture at various places along the Asiatic coast, especially about Kamchatka and the shores of Okhotsk Sea. In Alaska it is a scarce visitant to the Aleutian Islands and appears to be most common on the coast south of the Yukon Delta and from Cape Nome to Bering Straits.

The few individuals taken by the Alaskan Eskimos are captured while they are hunting other seals on the pack ice in winter, and while at sea in kyaks in spring and fall. Owing to its attractive markings, the skin of the male ribbon seal is greatly prized by the Eskimos, as it was formerly by the fur traders, for use as clothes-bags. The skin is removed entire and then tanned, the only opening left being a long slit in the abdomen, which is provided with eyelet holes and a lacing string, thus making a convenient water-proof bag to use in boat or dog-sledge trips.

The scarcity of the ribbon seal and its solitary habits will serve to safeguard it from the destructive pursuit which endangers the existence of some of its relatives.

Both summer and winter the great ice bear of the frozen north is appropriately clothed in white. It is also distinguished from all other bears by its long neck, slender pointed head, and the quantity of fur on the soles of its feet. It is a circumpolar species, the limits of whose range nearly everywhere coincide with the southern border of the pack ice. The great majority live permanently on the ice, often hundreds of miles from the nearest land.

During summer the polar bear rarely visits shore, but in winter commonly extends its wanderings to the Arctic islands and the bordering mainland coasts. In winter it ranges southward with the extension of the ice pack. In spring, by an unexpectedly sudden retreat of the ice, individual bears are often left south of their usual summer haunts, sometimes being found swimming in the open sea far off the coast of Labrador. Occasionally some of those which migrate southward with the ice through Bering Straits fail to turn north early enough and are stranded on islands in Bering Sea.

That a carnivore requiring so much food as the polar bear can maintain itself on the frozen polar sea is one of the marvels of adaptation to environment. The activity of these bears through the long black night of the far north is proved by records of Arctic explorers, whose caches have been destroyed and ships visited by them during that season. In this period of privation they range far over land and ice in search of food, and when in desperate need do not hesitate to attack men. I have seen several Eskimos who had been seriously injured in such encounters, and learned of other instances along the Arctic coast of Alaska in which hunters had been killed on the sea ice in winter. During the summer season of plenty, polar bears are mild and inoffensive, so far as men are concerned. At that time they wander over the pack ice, swimming in open leads, and, when hungry, killing a seal or young walrus.

When spring opens, many polar bears are near the Arctic coast. At that time the natives along the northeast coast of Siberia kill many of them on the ice with dogs and short-hafted, long-bladed lances. The dogs bring the bear to bay, and the hunter, watching his opportunity, runs in and thrusts the lance through its heart.

During the cruise of theCorwinwe saw many of these bears on the broken ice off Herald and Wrangel Islands. One large old maleclimbed to the top of an uptilted ice-pan and, after looking about, lay down on one side and, giving a push with one hind foot, slid down head foremost 30 or 40 feet, striking the water with a great splash. He then climbed out and walked sedately away.

Another bear saw a seal basking on the ice by a large patch of open water and, swimming across, suddenly raised himself half out of the water to the edge of the ice, and by a blow of his paw crushed the seal’s skull. He then climbed out and made a feast within 500 yards of where theCorwinwas anchored to the ice pack.

Once while we were anchored in a dense fog several miles off the pack a bear came swimming out to us, stopping every now and then to raise its head high out of water to sniff the attractive odors from the ship. Although strong and tireless swimmers, these bears lack the necessary speed to capture their prey in the water.

The female retires in winter to a snug den among the hummocks on the sea ice, where one or two naked cubs are born, which by the time the ice begins to break up are ready to follow the mother. Until the cubs are well grown the mother cares for and defends them with the most reckless disregard for her own safety. On one occasion I saw a wounded mother bear shield her cub, twice the size of a Newfoundland dog, when bullets began to strike the water about them, by swimming straight away with the cub safely sheltered between her forelegs.

The inaccessible character of so large a part of the home of the polar bear will long preserve it from the extermination that is overtaking some of the land bears.

Numerous species of black bears varying in size occur in North and South America and in Asia. In North America a black bear, remarkably uniform in general appearance, but representing various geographic races and possibly species, is generally distributed throughout the forested areas from the borders of the Arctic barrens, at the northern limit of trees, south throughout the United States and down the wooded Sierra Madre to Jalisco, Mexico, and from Newfoundland on the east to Queen Charlotte Island on the west.

These bears are usually entirely black except for a brown patch covering the muzzle and an occasional white spot on the breast. Their weight is variable, the largest ones exceeding 500 pounds, but they average much less.

The cinnamon bear, so common in the West and Northwest, long supposed to be a distinct species, has proved to be merely a color phase of the black bear—cinnamon cubs being born in the same litters with black ones.

Since the days of primitive man and the great cave bear, the ways of bears have had a fearsome interest to mankind. Childhood revels in the delicious thrills of bear stories and dwells with wonder on the habit bears have of standing upright like droll caricatures of man, on the manlike tracks of their hind feet, and on their fondness for sweets and other palatable food.

From the landing of the first colonists on our shores, hunters and settlers have encountered black bears so frequently that these are among the best-known large forest animals of the continent. During winter they hibernate for months, seeking a hollow tree, a low cave, the half shelter of fallen tree trunks and brush, or else digging a den for themselves. The female chooses a specially snug den, where in midwinter from one to four cubs are born. At birth the young, only 8 or 9 inches long, are practically naked and have their eyes closed. They are so undeveloped at this time that it is more than a month before their eyes open and more than two months before they can follow their mother.

Although powerful beasts, black bears are so shy and timid that to approach them requires the greatest skill on the part of a still hunter. They only attack people when wounded or so cornered that they must defend themselves or their young. To safeguard themselves from danger they rely mainly on a fine sense of hearing and an exquisite delicacy of smell. They have poor eyesight, and where a suspicious object is seen, but no sound or scent can be noted, they sometimes rise on their hind feet and look long and carefully before retreating.

To bears in the forest everything is game. They often spend the entire day turning over stones to lick up the ants and other insects sheltered there, and at night may visit settlers’ cabins and carry off pigs. They raid the settlers’ cornfields for green corn and are passionately fond of honey, robbing bee trees whenever possible. In season they delight in wild cherries, blueberries, and other fruits, as well as beechnuts, acorns, and pinyon nuts. They are mainly nocturnal, but in districts where not much disturbed wander widely by day.

The success of black bears in caring for themselves is well demonstrated by the numbers which still survive in the woods of Maine, New York, and other long-settled States. Their harmlessness and their exceeding interest to all render them worthy of careful protection. They should be classed as game and thoroughly protected as such except for certain open seasons. If this is done throughout the country, as is now the case in certain States, the survival of one of our most characteristic large wild animals will be assured.

When first discovered the glacier bear was supposed to be a distinct and well-marked species. Recently cubs representing the glacier bear and the typical black bear have been found in the same litter, thus proving it to be merely a color phase of the black bear. Its color varies exceedingly, from a light smoky,almost bluish, gray to a dark iron gray, becoming almost black. Some individuals are extraordinary appearing beasts, quite unlike any other bear. The interest in this curious color development is increased by its restricted distribution.

RIBBON SEALPOLAR BEAR

GLACIER BEARCINNAMON BEARBLACK BEARThe cinnamon bear is merely a color phase of the black bear.

GLACIER BEARCINNAMON BEARBLACK BEAR

The cinnamon bear is merely a color phase of the black bear.

The glacier bear is an Alaskan animal, which occupies the seaward front of the Mount St. Elias Range, about Yakutat Bay, and thence southeast to Glacier Bay and a short distance beyond toward the interior. The popular name of this bear was well chosen, as its home is in the midst of innumerable stupendous glaciers. Here, where the contours of gigantic mountain ranges are being steadily remade by glaciers, Nature appears to have begun the evolution of a new kind of bear. That the task is in progress is evidenced by the excessive variation in color, scarcely two individuals being the same.

The food of this bear consists largely of mice, ground squirrels, and marmots, which it digs from their burrows on the high mountain slopes. Its food is varied by salmon during the spawning season and by various herbs and berries during the summer. The winters in the home of the glacier bear are less severe than across the range in the interior, but are so long and stormy that the bear must spend more than six months each year in hibernation.

Owing to the remote and little-frequented region occupied by this bear, little is known of its life history. For this reason it is important that all sportsmen visiting its country bring back careful and detailed records of their observations. Up to the present time so few white men have killed glacier bears that a skin of one taken by fair stalking is a highly prized trophy. As the glacier bear country becomes more accessible, more stringent protection will be needed to prevent the extermination of these unique animals.

Recent research has shown that the popular terms grizzly or silver-tip cover a group containing numerous species of large bears peculiar to North America, some of which, especially in California, have become extinct within the last 25 years. These bears vary much in size, some about equaling the black bear and others attaining a weight of more than 1,000 pounds. They vary in color from pale dull buffy to nearly black, usually with lighter tips to the hairs, which produce the characteristic grizzled or silver-tipped appearance upon which the common names are based.

The strongest and most distinctive external character of the grizzlies is the long, proportionately slender, and slightly curved claws on the front feet, sometimes more than 3 inches long.

Grizzly bears have a wide range—from the Arctic coast of Alaska southward, in a belt extending from the Rocky Mountains to the Pacific, through western Canada and the United States, and thence along the Sierra Madre of Mexico to southern Durango. They also occupy the barren grounds of northern Canada, and vague reports of a large brown bear in the interior of the Peninsula of Labrador indicate the possibility of the existence there of an unknown species of grizzly.

From the days of the earliest explorers of the Rocky Mountain region grizzly bears have borne the undisputed title of America’s fiercest and most dangerous big game. In early days, having little fear of the primitive weapons of the Indians, they were bold and indifferent to the presence of man, and no higher badge of supreme courage and prowess could be gained by a warrior than a necklace of grizzly claws.

Since the advent of white men with guns, conditions have changed so adversely to the grizzlies that they have become extremely shy, and the slightest unusual noise or other alarm causes them to dash away at a lumbering, but surprisingly rapid, gallop. The deadly modern gun has produced this instinctive reaction for self-preservation. It does not mean, however, that grizzlies have lost their claim to the respect of even the best of hunters. They are still considered dangerous, and even in recent years experienced hunters have been killed or severely mauled by them. They are much more intelligent than the black bear, and thus, when wounded, are a more dangerous foe.

Like the black bear, the grizzlies are commonly nocturnal, but in remote districts often wander about in search of food by day. They roll over stones and tear open rotten wood in search of grubs and insects. They also dig out ground squirrels and other rodents and eat a variety of acorns and other wild nuts and fruits. As an offset to this lowly diet, many powerful old grizzlies, from the Rocky Mountains to California, have become notorious cattle-killers. They stalk cattle at night, and, seizing their prey by the head, usually break its neck, but sometimes hold and kill it by biting. These cattle-killing grizzlies still occur on the Western ranges. One or more wily marauders of this kind have run for years with a bounty of $1,000 on their heads.

Like other bears, grizzlies hibernate in winter, seeking small caves, or other shelter, and sometimes digging a den in the ground. The young, from one to four in number, are born in midwinter and are very small, naked, and but partly developed at birth. They go about with the mother throughout the summer and commonly den up with her the following winter. Although full-grown grizzlies are ordinarily solitary in habits, parties of from four to eight are sometimes seen. The object of these curious but probably brief companion-ships is not known.

Grizzlies are disappearing so rapidly that it is very desirable that they be placed on the list of game protected during part of the year, except in the case of the few individuals which become stock-killers. They are among the finest of native animals and their absence from the rugged slopes of the western mountains would leave a serious gap in our wild life.

(See frontispiece of this Magazine for the illustration of this remarkable animal)

The Alaskan brown bears form a group of gigantic animals peculiar to North America and limited to the coast and islands of Alaska, from the head of Norton Sound to the Sitka Islands. The group includes a number of species, individuals of two of which,Ursus gyas, of the Alaska Peninsula, andUrsus middendorffi, of Kodiak Island, sometimes attain a weight of 1,500 pounds or more, and are not only the largest existing bears, but are the largest living carnivores in the world. They can be likened only to the great cave bears, which were the haunting terror of primitive mankind during the “Old Stone Age” in Europe. Brown bears still exist in Europe and Asia, but they form a distinct group of much smaller animals than the American species.

The Alaskan brown bears vary much in color, from a dull golden yellowish to a dusky brown, becoming almost black in some species. In color some of the darker species are indistinguishable from the great grizzlies, with which in places they share their range; but the relatively shorter, thicker, and more strongly curved claws on the front feet of the brown bears are distinctive.

As a rule they are inoffensive giants and take flight at the first sign of man. The taint left by a man’s recent track or the faintest odor on the passing breeze, indicating the proximity of their dreaded enemy, is enough to start the largest of them in instant flight. Instances are reported of their having attacked people wantonly, but such cases are extremely rare. When wounded or suddenly surprised at close quarters, the instinct of self-defense not infrequently incites them to attack their enemy with furious energy. Many Indian and white hunters have been killed or terribly mauled by them in such encounters. At close quarters their great size, strength, and activity—astonishing for such apparently clumsy beasts—render them terrific antagonists.

Some of the species occupy open, rolling, or hilly tundras, and others live on the steepest and most rugged mountain slopes amid glaciers, rock slides, and perpetual snow-banks. On the approach of winter all retreat to dry locations, usually in the hills, where they dig dens in the earth or seek other cover to which they retire to hibernate, and here the young, usually two or three in number, are born. They usually emerge from hibernation in April or early May and wander about over the snow-covered hills and mountains. At this time their dark forms and their great tracks in the snow are so conspicuous that hunters have little difficulty in finding them.

Despite their size, brown bears devote much of their time to hunting such game as mice, ground squirrels, and marmots, which they dig from their burrows with extraordinary rapidity. During the salmon season, when the streams swarm with fish, bears frequent the lowlands and make trails along the watercourses, where they feed fat on this easy prey. During the summer and fall these great carnivores have the strange habit of grazing like cattle on the heavy grasslike growth of sedge in the lowland flats and benches, and also of eating many other plants.

Although Alaska was long occupied by the Russians and has been a part of our territory since 1867, not until 1898 was there any definite public knowledge concerning the existence of these bears, notwithstanding their size and abundance. Since that time they have become well known to sportsmen and others as one of the wonders of the remarkable region they occupy. Their comparatively limited and easily accessible territory renders their future precarious unless proper measures for their reasonable protection are continued. They are certain to be exterminated near settlements; but there are ample wild and inhospitable areas where they may range in all their original freedom for centuries to come, provided man permits.

When North America was first colonized, beavers existed in great numbers from coast to coast, in almost every locality where trees and bushes bordered streams and lakes, from near the Yukon Delta, in Alaska, and the Mackenzie Delta, on the Arctic coast, south to the mouths of the Colorado and the Rio Grande. Although now exterminated from most of their former range in the eastern United States, they still occur in diminished numbers over nearly all the remainder of their original territory, even in the lower Rio Grande and the delta of the Colorado. Their vertical distribution extends from sea-level to above an altitude of 9,000 feet.

Beavers are heavily built, round-bodied animals, with powerful chisel-shaped front teeth, short legs, fully webbed hind feet, and a flat, scaly tail. They are covered with long, coarse hairs overlying the short, dense, and silky underfur to which beaver skins owe their value. Their range covers the northern forested parts of both Old and New Worlds. The American species closely resembles in general appearance its Old World relative, but is distinctly larger, averaging 30 to 40 pounds in weight, but sometimes attaining a weight of more than 60 pounds. Owing to the different physical conditions in its wide range, the American animal has developed a number of geographic races.

Beavers mate permanently and have from two to five young each year. Their abundance and the high value of their fur exercised an unparalleled influence on the early exploration and development of North America. Beaver skins were the one ready product of the New World which the merchants of Europe were eager to purchase. As a consequence competition in the trade for these skins was the source of strong and bitter antagonisms betweenindividuals and companies, and even caused jealous rivalries among the Dutch, English, and French colonies.

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