262 The Grizzly Bear 



In each instance it was a grizzly that did the biting. I 

 have never seen a black bear make these marks on trees. 



I would like, myself, to know why the bears do this, 

 but I never expect to. And, after all, the action is so 

 casual, so animal-like, so similar to a cat's stretching 

 itself against a tree, that it is probably quite without hid- 

 den meaning. It seems to me that we are much given 

 to overworking our imaginations. 



Another notion commonly current is that a grizzly will 

 throw his fore legs around an antagonist and "hug" him 

 to death. There is no truth whatever in this idea, beyond 

 the fact that a grizzly, in attacking a large animal hke a 

 steer, will sometimes hold it with one paw while he strikes 

 it or rips it open with the other. Indeed, I imagine that 

 this supposed habit has been attributed to the grizzly 

 merely because it has long been credited to bears in 

 general. 



Again, contrary to the usual belief, I have never yet 

 seen a charging grizzly stand on his hind legs and thus 

 walk up to his antagonist. I do not believe that this is 

 their mode of attack. All that I have seen fight went at 

 things with a rush on all-fours; sometimes with a bawl 

 and a snort and with champing of the jaws, but never 

 with open mouth. They will, however, bite and rend 

 with their teeth, sometimes holding down the object of 

 their wrath with their fore paws while they tear and bite. 

 I have seen them rear up on their hind feet to deliver a 

 blow, but have never known them to do this until they 

 were near enough to strike. The idea that a grizzly de- 

 liberately stands up and walks up to his antagonist, like 

 one of the principals in a prize-ring, is a mistaken one. 



