Black Bruin | Page 3

are found
to be both black and brown. Cubs of both colors will often be
discovered with the same mother, but the brown variety is not found
east of the Mississippi River. The really black bear also varies in color
with the seasons, being darker and glossier in the cold months.
To see a bear really enjoy himself is to discover him in the blueberry
lot, standing upon his hind legs, swooping the berries into his mouth
with ravenous delight. At such a time his grin of benevolence is very
apparent.
The cubs den up with the old bear the first fall, but usually shift for
themselves when the new cubs come, although it is not an infrequent
sight to see an old bear with two sizes of cubs following her.
As a rule, the different varieties of black bear are not dangerous. While
they will occasionally charge the hunter when wounded, they usually
flee away at their best pace when danger appears.
Even when interested with berry-picking or hunting, the bear is

watchful and wary and as his scent and hearing are of the keenest, he is
hard to surprise. It is probably true that his eyesight is not as keen as his
other senses.
The black bear is hunted both on the still hunt, and with dogs. When
dogs are employed, a large pack is used, and they merely run the bear
until it is treed or brought to bay, when it is shot by the hunter. Dogs
are of little, if any, use in hunting grizzlies.
There are several varieties of large bears, probably all variations of
grizzlies, which are differentiated locally. Some of these are the
roachback, the silver tip, the California grizzly, the plains bear, the
smut-face, etc.
In the olden days before the grizzly became wise, he would charge
anything that walked either on two or four feet. But he has now learned
all about firearms, and is as willing to run from the hunter, as is his
cousin, the black bear.
The bear's manner of hunting large game is usually by ambush. As
most of his victims are more fleet of foot than he, he does not
undertake to run them down in the open, but if he can get them at
disadvantage in thick cover, or at the lick, this is his opportunity.
In the Adirondack country and in Northern Maine, it is a common sight
to see a young bear about a farmhouse, where he is as much at home as
the farm-dog. Many of the summer hotels, in this region, keep a tame
bear to amuse the visitors.
These bears are obtained as cubs from any one who is fortunate enough
to discover a bear's den and who has the good luck to find the old bear
away from home and the cubs at his mercy.
A likely cub can usually be obtained in either Maine or Northern New
York for five or ten dollars.
Bears occasionally stray down the Green Mountains into Western
Massachusetts, where they inhabit the Hoosac Mountains, which are a

continuation of this range.
Very recently a bear was killed near October Mountain, upon Mr.
Whitney's extensive game-preserve. He had been hanging about the
mountain all summer and had given two belated pedestrians a lively
sprint only the night before his Waterloo. Being emboldened by the
seeming servility of the neighborhood, bruin finally went to a
farmhouse and, forcing the kitchen door, marched boldly into the
well-ordered room to see what they were going to have for dinner.
While waiting for this meal, he amused himself by tumbling the pots
and pans about. This enraged the thrifty housewife, who seized a
double-barreled shotgun standing in the corner and discharged both
barrels simultaneously at the intruder. When the smoke cleared away, it
was discovered that she had bagged a bear weighing three hundred
pounds.
The dancing bear of song and story, as well as of real life, has long
been the delight of children, but he is not now seen as frequently as of
yore. Bears in the circus to-day play a minor part in the performance.
This short introductory chapter is the pedigree and characteristics in
brief, of Ursus, the bear, whose varieties, like those of Reynard, the fox,
are legion.
I have tried to give the reader some idea of the bear in general, but
these facts about bruin must be varied as the climate varies between the
arctic regions and the tropics. If a meat diet makes man cross and brutal,
and a fruit and vegetable diet makes him amiable and indolent, they
affect bruin in the same manner.
But wherever you find a bear, be he a grizzly, black, or polar, basking
in the tropical sun, or freezing upon the ice-floe, he will still be