Food and Feeding 97 



seem to take no harm from the cold storage. By the 

 way, the bear is not alone in liking this peculiar diet. 

 I have seen French Canadian lumber jacks pick up 

 handfuls of these frozen black ants and eat them. 

 One of them once informed me that they tasted ^'just 

 the same like raspberries." 



The Black Bear is also fond of bumble-bees, yellow- 

 jackets, wasps, and hornets. He is the bear that is, 

 when occasion offers, the honey-eater; but in the 

 Rockies and Western coast ranges there are few wild 

 honey-bees, and so his taste in that direction is seldom 

 indulged, but he makes up for this by hunting out and 

 eating such bees as he can find. He will dig up bumble- 

 bees and eat them and will lap yellow- jackets off his 

 fur exactly as he does ants. Of course the bear is 

 fully protected by his thick coat from any attack by 

 the bees, and if the latter sting his mouth or tongue 

 as he swallows them, he manages to disguise the fact 

 very thoroughly. I have never seen one shake his 

 head or otherwise advertise a mishap of this kind. 



But all these bugs and bees and ants and mice are, 

 after all, but the luxuries and dessert of the Black 

 Bear's diet. He is, for the most part, a vegetarian, 

 does far more grazing than is ordinarily supposed, and 

 has his real season of plenty and stuffing when the 

 berry season arrives. He will travel miles to get to a 

 berry patch, and even when tamed and half domesti- 

 cated will often try to escape to the open for this annual 



