BIG GAME OF NORTH AMERICA 359 



from necessity ; so that if there are no carcases about, and few 

 or no bulbs in the country, the hunter may expect to find 

 U. horribilis making the best of ' arpa ' and skunk cabbage. 

 As the season advances, the bear changes his diet somewhat, 

 and before his great autumn harvests of fish, fruits and nuts, 

 we find him tearing up rotten logs for ants and beetles, 

 turning over boulders for the larvae which lie below them, 

 digging up yellow jackets' (wasps, &c.) nests for the sake of 

 the grubs inside, and occasionally burrowing in the hill-sides 

 for marmots or ground hogs. 



The bear's season of plenty begins with the ripening of the 

 first fruits on the flats by the river bottoms, when those who 

 care to shoot game out of season may find some sport in kill- 

 ing both varieties of bear as they wander over the sand bars of 

 Alaskan rivers, looking for fruit and a cold bath to allay the 

 irritation of their bald and mangy-looking hides. 



The berry season in British Columbia begins at midsummer, 

 and from that time until late in the fall there is always plenty 

 of bear food in the woods : raspberries (which bears love 

 beyond all things), currants, gooseberries, soapberries, service, 

 wine, salmon, bil- and black-berries, strawberries, choke- 

 cherries, and a score of others, whose flavour I can remember 

 but whose names I never knew. 



I have never seen, except in the Caucasus, such a land 

 for wild fruit as British Columbia. Compared with it, Colorado, 

 for instance, is a most unfruitful country ; but, to make 

 amends, Colorado abounds in acorns and pine nuts, of which 

 there are few, if any, in British Columbia. Where the acorns 

 are, there will the bears be also, but acorns are an uncertain 

 crop, failing utterly one year and abounding another. 



By the way, just before the acorn crop comes in, the silver- 

 tips of Colorado seem to devote a good deal of their time to 

 digging in woodland bogs, but whether they dig for roots or 

 insects I am not sure. In Alaska, in British Columbia, and 

 all along the Pacific Coast the bear's bonne bouche is kept 

 until nearly the end of the year. In spring the ' tyhee ' salmon 



