A Bear Hunt in the Adirondacks. 239 



about a quarter of an acre under the beech trees : with great 

 labor he had turned up the earth, discoloring the snow. 

 Notwithstanding the numbers of small animals of the 

 mice and squirrel kind, whose burrows abounded both 

 through the snow and in the ground beueath, in no 

 instance had this supposedly carnivorous beast stopped 

 to dig them. From observations, at this time and pre- 

 viously, of the habits of the true black bear of our state, I 

 am forced to the conclusion that he is not a carnivorous 

 animal. The tusks and claws, carefully examined, will 

 be found to be best suited to digging up roots, seeds, mast 

 and the like. The only carnivorous habit that I have ob- 

 served in the wild bear, is that of eating the common black 

 ant, and the grubs -found beneath rocks and logs; omni- 

 vorous he may be, but strictly carnivorous he is not. His 

 dental system, the number of tuberculous teeth in either 

 jaw do not support it; as for his ferociousness, he is like 

 any other animal, when wounded and cornered dangerous. 



His eating flesh when kept in confinement or driven 

 to it by starvation, is no proof of his carnivorous habits ; 

 two of the rodenta, the beaver and musquash, have been 

 known to devour flesh, and they have no carnivorous teeth. 

 Baron Cuvier speaks of the bears' " almost frugiverous 

 dentition" and states that they have " three large molars 

 on each side in each jaw, altogether tuberculous." Tuber- 

 culous teeth are the posterior blunted ones. 



The following seem to me facts : that bears are naturally 

 strict vegetarians ; that when the winter is mild and opeu, 

 and beech-mast, etc., plentiful, they remain out during the 

 entire winter and do nothybernate ; that when they "den," 

 they seldom resort to caverns, but select a shelter beneath 

 a fallen tree or windslash, where the deep snows cover 

 and form their only blanketing; that even when strongest 

 and most powerful they may be run down and destroyed 

 by man. Abbe Dupratz speaks of their migrating during 



