132 ON THE FRONTIER. 



My experience of grisly bears and I have often made 

 their personal acquaintance is, anybody to the contrary 

 notwithstanding, that they do not hibernate. I think 

 the belief that they do has arisen from the cinnamon, or 

 more properly speaking the cimmarron (Spanish- American 

 for wild or savage) bears being continually confounded 

 with them by those who write chiefly from hearsay. They 

 are, however, distinct and separate species, one always 

 hibernating, the other, I think, never doing so. Certainly 

 the grisly does not hibernate in California, where I have 

 frequently tracked them in the snow in midwinter, and 

 seen their fresh tracks every day all winter through ; and 

 as we did not do so in Wet-mountain Valley I doubt their 

 existence there. 



Wolves were very numerous, and of three species first 

 and foremost, the gray mountain- wolf, the largest and fiercest 

 of the genus, hunting in packs by day as well as night ; next, 

 the timber-wolf, of a dark bluish-gray, a solitary, skulking- 

 night prowler ; lastly, the coyote, a small, cunning fellow, 

 always hunting or sneaking about by day or night singly and 

 in small bands. 



Of foxes there were a few silver-grays, whose fur is the 

 most valuable of the fox family ; innumerable common 

 American gray foxes, a few specimens of the red fox, and 

 many " swifts " the last-mentioned a species of fox I 

 have rarely met with, and nowhere as plentifully as in 

 Wet-mountain Valley. He gets his name from his great 

 speed, which is astonishing. I believe he is not only the 

 fastest goer of his size, but absolutely the fastest of all 

 animals. He is of a blackish-gray colour on the back, 



