1082 Life-histories of Northern Animals 



we have seen people almost distracted by it when they had 

 inadvertently put a piece in their mouth." 



Richardson, when on the Churchill River in 1848, was 

 shown a root that evidently supplied the Bears with food. He 

 says of it;" 



"The Actaea alba grows abundantly here. It is called by 

 the Canadians le racine d'ours, and by the Crees musqua-mitsu- 

 in (Bear's food). A decoction of its roots and of the top of the 

 spruce fir is used as a drink in stomach complaints." 



Throughout the summer all kinds of insects, and espe- 

 cially ants, are important Bear food. 



In the sandhills about Carberry, in the woods about Lake 

 Winnipegosis, throughout the Bitterroot Mountains of Idaho, 

 and on the ranges of the upper Yellowstone, as well as in the 

 Rockies of Colorado and the Low Laurentians of the upper 

 Ottawa, I have found that ants' nests furnished the Bear with 

 an important article of food. Following the trail of one, I 

 have found that it invariably turned over every log and flat 

 stone that it came to, and ripped open every rotten log and 

 stump in its search for insects, the greater part of which must 

 have been ants. Among the Bitterroot Mountains I have, in 

 a single day, passed hundreds of these demolished logs and 

 stumps. 



In the Adirondacks, according to Merriam," the Black- 

 bear "delights in tearing open old stumps and logs in search 

 of the ants that make their homes in such situations. * * * " 



"While fishing in the North Bay of Big Moose Lake, dur- 

 ing the summer of 1 88 1, Mr. Harry Burell Miller, of New York 

 City, heard a Bear tearing down an old stump that stood on a 

 point in the bay. His guide, Richard Crego, noiselessly 

 paddled him to the spot, and he killed the Bear with one ball 

 from his rifle. Its stomach contained about a quart of ants 

 and their eggs." 



As summer wears on, the Blackbears of the Pacific water- 

 shed have a new supply in the myriads of salmon with which 



'" Arc. Search Exp. of 1848 (1851), Vol. I, p. 82. 

 " Mam. Adir., 1884, p. 95. 



