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 larve 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, 
a 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 donne bouche is kept 
_ uutil nearly the end of the year. In spring the ‘tyhee’ salmon 
