1044 Life-histories of Northern Animals 



playful. Their ground colour is gray, with dark ears, feet, and 

 patch around eyes. Already they eat meat, fruit, bread, etc. 

 Their mother is very careful of them. She seemed unwilling 

 to let them go out of the den, but they got past her, and she 

 followed. As we fed them it came on to rain very heavily and 

 suddenly; at the same time a loud slam of the bars alarmed her. 

 At once she raked and cuffed the two young ones under her 

 body, then, straddling very wide, sheltered them from the rain 

 and guided them back into the den. She often uttered a sort 

 of choppy coughing sound to them. 



Sometimes the little ones put their paws through the cage 

 to their father. He would sniff at the paws very loudly and 

 utter a sort of short, quick " koff, koff, koff, koff." It was not a 

 menace, as he offered them no harm, though he had ample 

 opportunity. At any sudden alarm the old mother reared up 

 on her hind-quarters to look around. 



The young commonly number 2, rarely 3, but 4 have been 

 noted in one or two extraordinary cases. 



Ordinarily, they are born in the mother's winter den, 

 exactly as described in the Blackbear. They are suckled all 

 winter in the den, but begin to eat solid food as soon as they 

 can get it; that is, after they have begun active life in the spring. 



Ordinarily, they pass the summer with their mother as sole 

 guardian, but there seem to be some cases in which the father — 

 that is an interested adult male — has joined the party. 



Catlin'" tells of a male and female Grizzly-bear that, ac- 

 companied by the cubs, came into his camp on the Missouri 

 near the Yellowstone Fork and, on being molested, attacked 

 him. Evidently it was in the height of summer. Several 

 instances of the kind are on record. 



It is commonly agreed that the young Grizzlies stay with 

 the mother till winter, and that all den up during the coldest 

 weather, but it seems uncertain whether on this, their second 

 winter, mother and young lie up in the same den. 



It is probable that the Grizzly breeds but once in two 

 years, unless the young are destroyed before midsummer. The 



'* Life Among the Indians, pp. 128-31. 



