266 The Grizzly Bear 



It had always been his custom to cut open the stomachs 

 of the game he killed and to examine their contents in 

 order to see just what food the animal preferred and to 

 know where to hunt it; and he claimed that he had never 

 killed an elk in the Olympics that did not have the leaves 

 of the elder in its stomach. He, therefore, cut open 

 every elk that was killed on the trip to prove that this 

 was characteristic of the species, but never an elder-bush 

 leaf could be found in the stomach of an elk of the Bitter 

 Root range. In fact, these elks seemed to actually avoid 

 the places where this bush grew. 



So with the grizzly bear. A naturalist who had 

 studied him in the Bitter Root Mountains would say that 

 he was a skilful fisherman and a greedy eater of his 

 catch, that he fed voraciously on the leaves of the shoot- 

 ing star, and that he seldom touched flesh. And men who 

 had only known these animals in the Selkirks or in Wy- 

 oming would, in either case, declare that the author knew 

 nothing of what he was writing about. 



But these local discrepancies are the most obvious 

 of our pitfalls. Let the student follow where he will and 

 watch with what devotion he may, the wild beasts guard 

 many of their actions from his eyes. And at the last, 

 when he perhaps thinks that he has surprised all but the 

 most hidden of their secrets, he will come up against that 

 impenetrable barrier that separates their minds from 

 his. Then, if he is wise, he will place a watch on his 

 imagination. 



I have tried to the best of my ability to keep these 

 facts in mind. I have avoided where I could the easy 

 mistake of coloring the actions of the observed animal 



