72 The Black Bear 



can get down to the bottoms where the snow is gone 

 and the vegetation has started sprouting. This, by 

 the way, if you happen to Hve in the neighborhood, 

 is an excellent time to keep a sharp watch on your 

 young pigs. 



At this stage the cubs weigh about five or six pounds 

 and, although it is some months before they begin to 

 forage at all for themselves, their development is now 

 much more rapid. I have frequently watched old 

 Black Bears with cubs in the early summer, but have 

 never seen the young ones show any apparent interest 

 in what the mother was eating, and hence I believe 

 that in their natural state they are six or seven months 

 old before they begin the process of being weaned. 

 But although about the time the berries are ripe the 

 cubs take to foraging pretty generally on their own 

 account, they continue to nurse right through the 

 summer and until they either den up with the mother 

 in the fall or, as I think is more usual, until they are 

 turned adrift by her before she herself dens up alone. 

 In fact I have seen them, late in the year, and when 

 they were of a size that should have made them 

 ashamed of such dependence, pestering their mother 

 as she walked, and getting occasional cuffs for their 

 persistence. 



Ben showed no concern whatever over grown-up 

 bear dishes until the berry season came around, when 

 he suddenly developed an appetite for outside board, 



