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. Ina 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. 1 am talk- 
ing now of the forepaws, and it will be remembered that the _ 
claws of the black are much arched, and therefore onlytouch 
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 lbs. ; but no doubt d 
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, 
