182 A BLACK BEAR HUNT 



The sportsman, when hunting caribou in the first snow, some- 

 times stumbles across a bear's tracks and follows them to the 

 den. Should the den be that of a female with cubs he will often 

 find it a comfortable apartment, floored by spruce boughs and 

 dried ferns, such as no tired hunter would disdain for a night's 

 resting-place. 



The male, however, is more easily satisfied. Behind the 

 tangled roots of some upturned tree, among a mass of boughs, 

 or in some slightly protected hollow in a cliff, he will curl himself 

 up, and the snows soon cover him in his rugged sleep. The female 

 doubtless takes precautions for the sake of her young. The cubs 

 are born early in January. It is remarkable that the mother 

 secretes milk while in a state of torpidity. For three and a 

 half long dark months, without access to food, she, weighing per- 

 haps five hundred pounds, suckles a cub less in size than a pointer 

 pup at the same age. A 'ten-day old cub the writer once saw, 

 measured, when stretched out from tip of nose to end of hind toe, 

 only ten and a half inches. It had fine black hair on the back and 

 dark slate on the underneath of the body. It had no teeth, and 

 the eyes were closed. The length of the claws was remarkable. 

 The specimen helped him to understand the origin of the old fable, 

 that a cub is born a formless lump and licked into shape by the 

 dam. 



A curious lair was once discovered by some lumbermen on the 

 Upsalquitch River, who were surprised at seeing a very large bear 

 one soft April morning crawl out from under a bridge of logs, over 

 which they had been hauling timber all winter long without arous- 

 ing the creature from his deep lethargy. 



Bear-meat is always kept simmering in the pot exclusively set 

 apart for the Indians. While sticking in a fork with astonishing 

 frequency they delight in presenting the subject of their feast in 

 comical situations. In fact, they make out bruin a born humorist. 

 Noel knew of a bear which, after breaking into a lumber camp, 

 drew a molasses tap and rolled over and over in the sticky syrup ; 

 afterwards, breaking up a flour barrel with one stroke of his 

 terrible fore-paw, he rolled over and over in the flour. When the 

 men returned they were astonished to find a white bear in the 

 house. Was not this bear having his fun as what bear has not 

 at times ? Once Nicola saw a bear seated on top of a beaver- 

 house, trying in vain to hit the beavers with his paw as they swam 

 past in a tantalizing manner. On another occasion he watched 

 a bear on a large log amusing himself by delivering a series of 

 blows on a poor yearling moose calf he had artfully driven in a 

 slough till it had become ' mired '. Every blow, delivered at regular 



