66 HUNTING THE GRISLY. 



do they become in their feasts on the luscious 

 fruit that they grow reckless of their safety, 

 and feed in broad daylight, almost at midday ; 

 while in some of the thickets, especially those 

 of the mountain haws, they make so much 

 noise in smashing the branches that it is a 

 comparatively easy matter to approach them 

 unheard. That still-hunter is in luck who in 

 the fall finds an accessible berry-covered hill- 

 side which is haunted by bears ; but, as a rule, 

 the berry bushes do not grow close enough to- 

 gether to give the hunter much chance. 



Like most other wild animals, bears which 

 have known the neighborhood of man are 

 beasts of the darkness, or at least of the dusk 

 and the gloaming. But they are by no means 

 such true night-lovers as the big cats and the 

 wolves. In regions where they know little of 

 hunters they roam about freely in the day- 

 light, and in cool weather are even apt to take 

 their noontide slumbers basking in the sun. 

 Where they are much hunted they finally al- 

 most reverse their natural habits and sleep 

 throughout the hours of light, only venturing 

 abroad after nightfall and before sunrise ; but 

 even yet this is not the habit of those bears 

 which exist in the wilder localities where they 

 are still plentiful. In these places they sleep, 

 or at least rest, during the hours of greatest heat, 

 and again in the middle part of the night, un- 

 less there is a full moon. They start on their 

 rambles for food about mid-afternoon, and end 

 their morning roaming soon after the sun is 

 above the horizon. If the moon is full, how- 



