Characteristics and Habits 201 



Mountain grizzly in the Bronx Zoo, and that if I would 

 come up the next morning I might see them, and photo- 

 graph them. They were just twelve hours old when I 

 arrived, and the two weighed one pound, that is, eight 

 ounces each. They measured nine inches from nose to 

 tail, and the accompanying illustration gives an excellent 

 idea of their appearance. The mother weighed about six 

 hundred pounds. 



Grizzly cubs are born with their eyes closed, and do 

 not open them for about the same period as puppies and 

 kittens. There is very little hair on their bodies at birth, 

 and what there is is so short that they have every appear- 

 ance of being naked. They are born without teeth, or, 

 rather, their teeth are so little developed that they can 

 barely be felt by pressing one's finger down on their gums. 

 These teeth, however, grow very rapidly, and are early 

 replaced by a new set as sharp as needles. 



The dam and her family leave the den anywhere be- 

 tween the first of April and the middle of May, according 

 to the locality. I have never found the fresh track of a 

 grizzly in the Kootenai country earlier than the 5th of 

 May, while in the southern part of central Idaho I have 

 seen where a grizzly had left his den as early as the middle 

 of March. The male bears leave their dens from one to 

 three weeks before the female and her cubs come out; 

 yet in any one locality, nearly all of each class leave their 

 dens about the same time. 



How the brutes can tell just when to come out is one 

 of their own secrets. In the Selkirks they den so high up 

 among the peaks that when they emerge there are from 

 four to six (and in some cases even ten) feet of snow still 



