374 BIG GAME SHOOTING 



a true American, the cub naturally showed a preference for the 

 plug of T. & B., but none of the other things came amiss to 

 him. In a wild state a black bear will eat any garbage, putrid 

 fish, dead animals, or anything else which comes in his way. 

 In fact, the poor black bear is in all his tastes and habits a 

 thorough hog : a pig without a pig's pugnacity. 



As a rule he is a lowland beast, living in swamps and river- 

 bottoms, but I have seen him once or twice even in a mountain 

 sheep country, probably crossing over the divide from one 

 river-bed to another. It is well for him that he generally 

 eschews the open, for once out of the timber everything which 

 has eyes must see him. A man may mistake a burnt log for a 

 bear, but no man could mistake a bear for a burnt log. The 

 intense blackness and gloss of a bear's coat is not thoroughly 

 appreciated until you see it contrasted with other objects which 

 you are accustomed to call black. 



Where the sportsman runs any chance of seeing tracks of 

 both black and grizzly in one and the same piece of country, 

 it is as well to be able to distinguish the one from the other. 



It is not easy to do this, but, as a general rule, if the ground 

 on which the track is made is soft, you should be able to see 

 the long cuts made by the grizzly's claws, as contrasted with the 

 little holes made by the points of the black bears. I am talk- 

 ing now of the forepaws, and it will be remembered that the 

 claws of the black are much arched, and therefore only touch 

 at the tip, whereas the grizzly's claw is flat and should touch 

 almost along its whole length. 



Again, there is no doubt that the heel of the grizzly is 

 much broader and squarer than that of the black bear, which 

 makes a very narrow impression, even upon soft clay. 



Like the grizzly, the black bear varies greatly in size and 

 weight. On Vancouver Island I am inclined to think that the 

 average black bear would not weigh 300 Ibs. ; but no doubt 

 there are many exceptional bears, even upon the island, which 

 greatly exceed that weight ; and I have myself seen an old 

 male upon the mainland which, if I am any judge of weight, 



