Food and Feeding 221 



bears kept the grass cropped close in the little opening, 

 not one ever touched it, nor, so far as we could discover, 

 did they even smell of it or look at it. 



I should say, unhesitatingly, that the reason these 

 bears do not care for meat is because they have never 

 known the taste of it. In districts where game is plentiful 

 the bears have been accustomed to live for a part of the 

 time on flesh, and will eat it whenever found. But where 

 they have been forced back into the remote fastnesses of 

 the mountains, where meat and fish are scarcely to be had, 

 and where, from the time of their birth, they are plant 

 eaters, it is not surprising that the carnivorous instinct is 

 not at all, or but slightly, developed. 



Almost any mountaineer will testify that animals have 

 to be taught to eat food different from that to which they 

 have been accustomed. We are, for instance, used to 

 thinking of the horse as a grain eater, and most people 

 will scoff at the idea of a horse that is afraid of oats. Yet 

 many times, when no grazing was to be had, I have seen 

 horses, that had been caught up wild and broken to 

 packing, pull back and snort with fright at the sight of a 

 feed of grain, and stand all night with oats in front of 

 them and refuse to eat them. So, I think, it is with the 

 bear. 



But aside from the grizzlies in one locality eating meat, 

 and those of another refusing it, there are other idiosyn- 

 crasies in the taste and food habits of these animals that 

 teach us to be careful how we generalize from local ob- 

 servation. And this lesson may well be taken to heart by 

 both the hunter and the field naturalist. Above all things, 

 it is important that, when we make a note or mention an 



