ON A CUB FOUND IN A BEARS DEN—-GILPIN. 153 
out of winter quarters very fat, it all wastes in a few days. <As 
vo the degree of hibernation attained to, Stephen Bradford’s 
narrative is verified by other Indians, and by observation of 
tame bears. In captivity, especially if well fed and housed, 
some never hibernate, but sleep much more during the winter. 
Others you may force into hibernation by want of food, and 
confining them in a dark cellar. They have been noticed in 
coming out of their houses into an atmosphere nearly at zero, to 
be covered by a thick mist of condensed invisible sweat; this is 
the vapour hanging over their dens in the forest, and conducting 
the Indian to them. They are never entirely unconscious, being 
poked by a stick they will growl but relapse immediately again, 
and it requires much poking to arouse them, as Stephen Brad- 
ford’s bad powder and dirty gun did in his narrative. Having 
thus, as one may say, re-verified by personal observation and 
modern research, what are the recorded facts of the older 
naturalists as well as the traditions of our Indians, who have 
never read a book or heard of a naturalist, we may pass to those 
considerations which the finding of this most rare specimen has 
drawn our attention to, as regards its condition both within the 
womb and its nutrition after birth. 
That so highly organized an animal as a bear should be able 
to retain not only his vitality but his animal heat, and his 
muscular strength for the space of four months, without any 
food whatever, is sufficiently wonderful, knowing as we do, that 
in this time, if there be no supply there is no waste, save per- 
haps of animal heat. But when we consider the female, we find 
there is waste and no supply. . The material for a second life, 
and its growth, must be taken from an accumulated fund. 
Taking the middle of September as the time of conception of 
the individual before us, and allowing she went into winter 
quarters about the middle of November, she then carried within 
her a fcetus of two months old. This foetus she sustained, and 
eliminated substance for its growth for six weeks, with no 
exterior resources, and in a profound torpor. This torpor spreads 
over all organs of the body, save those of the womb. About the 
Ist of January, as most certainly is proved by the conditions of 
