Old Ephraim, the Grisly Bear. 271 



that close kinsman of the grisly known as the bear of the 

 barren grounds continues to lead this same kind of life, in 

 the far north. My friend Mr. Rockhill, of Maryland, who 

 was the first white man to explore eastern Tibet, describes 

 the large, grisly-like bear of those desolate uplands as 

 having similar habits. 



However, the grisly is a shrewd beast and shows the 

 usual bear-like capacity for adapting himself to changed 

 conditions. He has in most places become a cover-haunting 

 animal, sly in his ways, wary to a degree, and clinging to 

 the shelter of the deepest forests in the mountains and of 

 the most tangled thickets in the plains. Hence he has 

 held his own far better than such game as the bison and 

 elk. He is much less common than formerly, but he is still 

 to be found throughout most of his former range ; save of 

 course in the immediate neighborhood of the large towns. 



In most places the grisly hibernates, or as old hunters 

 say "holes up, " during the cold season, precisely as does 

 the black bear ; but as with the latter species, those animals 

 which live farthest south spend the whole year abroad in 

 mild seasons. The grisly rarely chooses that favorite den 

 of his little black brother, a hollow tree or log, for his 

 winter sleep, seeking or making some cavernous hole in 

 the ground instead. The hole is sometimes in a slight 

 hillock in a river bottom, but more often on a hill-side, and 

 may be either shallow or deep. In the mountains it is 

 generally a natural cave in the rock, but among the foot-hills 

 and on the plains the bear usually has to take some 

 hollow or opening, and then fashion it into a burrow to his 

 liking with his big digging claws. 



