152 ON A CUB FOUND IN A BEAR'S DEN—GILPIN. 
cub to have been ten or twelve days old when taken, from 
reasons I have before stated, it puts its birth about the first of 
January. Our snows rarely fall to any depth before the middle 
of November, and our bears usually seek their dens about that 
period for hibernation. The male bear is easily satisfied ; behind 
the root of an upturned tree, a mass of tangled wood, or a hol- 
low cliff in a rock serves him, and the snows soon cover him in 
his rugged sleep. Not so the female, if parturient. She selects 
the most obscure and hidden places, lining them oftentimes with 
layers of spruce fir branches. It is an unquestioned maxim 
with Indians, that no one has ever taken a she bear with young. 
This is both owing to the obscurity of her hiding place, and the 
asserted fact that if disturbed she will always abort. My son 
in hunting some years ago, came upon many spruce firs with 
their lower branches torn off and strewed about the snow. His 
Indian told him it was the work of a she bear lining her den. 
Hard by they found a crevice in a ridge of rock, whieh, after 
ascertaining it had no occupant, he entered, crawling upon hands 
and feet, with his Indian holding his leg. The interior was a 
comfortable apartment in which he could sit upright, floored by 
spruce boughs, and which no tired hunter would refuse as a rest- 
ing place. But it is not usual to find so comfortable quarters as 
these. Richardson quoting from Pennant, and Godwin, both attest 
to the truth of our Indians’ assertions regarding the deep privacy 
of the female in denning. The former saying, in very severe 
Winters many bears migrate south, but no females found 
amongst them; and the latter asserting that out of many 
hundreds of males only two females were found, and those not 
with young. The hard and early winter had prevented the 
males from obtaining that condition of fat necessary for hiber- 
nation and therefore they became what our Indiaas eall wander- 
ing bears, never denning. Instinct compelling the female to do 
so, as well as her being always in the proper condition, when 
the male is wasted by the September rut. A party with whom 
T was hunting in 1841, met and killed one of these wandering 
bears on the first of March. Our Indians also corroborate the 
assertions of the older naturalists, that though the bear comes 
