1078 Life-histories of Northern Animals 



really saw was more like the action of a cat. It had not the 

 spring and agility of a Squirrel or Marten, but this Bear went 

 up three times as fast as any man could, and quite as well as 

 any monkey that ever I saw. In coming down he travels tail 

 first. It is quite a common thing for a Bear up a tree, when 

 fired at, to throw himself to the ground from a considerable 

 height. Those hunters who do not know this trick are apt to 

 think the game is killed, and are generally surprised to see him 

 bound ofi^, as though quite unhurt. 



A friend of mine had a Blackbear cub that used to play 

 some very curious tricks on a dog that he alternately played 

 and quarrelled with. Hiding in a tree, under which the dog 

 sometimes slept, he would await a good chance to leap from 

 a height of fifteen feet and land with crushing force on his 

 enemy's body, not breaking any bones, but knocking his breath 

 out, and driving him away in ignominious rout. 



SWIM- Bears are good swimmers. It is quite a common thing to 



see Bears in Muskoka and in northern Manitoba make volun- 

 tarily long swims across lakes and rivers. In the August of 

 1906, Dr. Gordon Bell, with the other Water Commissioners of 

 Winnipeg, secured a large Bear swimming in Shoal Lake. 



It is easy, if one have boat and rifle, to overtake and kill 

 the swimming Bear, but without the latter it is a risky business, 

 for the Bear, on seeing the boat come near, may turn and climb 

 into it. He does not usually attack the other occupant, under 

 these circumstances, but his ideas of 'trim' are so inadequate 

 that it usually ends in the hunter having to swim for it. 



WALLOWS Old hunters who have lived their lives among the one-time 

 swarming Bears of the Rockies, tell you that a Bear is a kind of 

 a pig. What a pig will eat a Bear will eat; what a pig will do 

 a Bear will do; only a Bear is smarter and he can climb. Many 

 of them apply pig nomenclature to Bears, speaking of them as 

 'boars,' 'sows,' 'droves,' etc. 



In the Colorado Mountains I once saw a black muck 

 wallow much like that of a Wapiti, but all about were evidences 



