Characteristics and Habits 85 



together the fall following the latter's birth, and run 

 together during the following summer, and it is not 

 until late in the second season that the mother turns 

 the cubs adrift to shift for themselves. This family 

 of young grizzlies then usually den up together and 

 continue to run together the third summer, at the close 

 of which the litter disbands and the individuals belong- 

 ing to it take up their separate lives. I have also seen 

 a few litters of yearling Black Bears still running in 

 company without their mother; but as this is by no 

 means a common sight, I believe that ordinarily Black 

 Bear cubs den up separately after they leave their 

 mother at the close of their first summer. 



Inasmuch, however, as I have seen a few Black Bear 

 mothers followed by yearling cubs, I assume that in 

 these cases the mother and cubs had denned up to- 

 gether in the same manner that the grizzlies habitually 

 do. And I once actually found an old Black Bear and 

 two cubs so settled for the winter. I have also tracked 

 an old grizzly and her cubs to where they had gone 

 into winter quarters together, and have seen where a 

 grizzly mother and her year-old family had emerged 

 from hibernation in company the second spring. I 

 have also often seen where a litter of two-year-old 

 grizzly cubs had wintered together in one cave after 

 leaving their mother in their third fall, but I have 

 never seen any actual evidence of young Black Bears 

 wintering together in this manner. 



