BOOK VIII. Liv. 126-129 



LIV. Beai's couple at the beginning of winter, rhe bear 

 and not in the usual manner of quadrupeds but both 

 lying down and hugging each other ; afterwards 

 they retire apart into caves, in which they give birth 

 on .the thirtieth day to a htter of five cubs at most. 

 These are a white and shapeless lump of flesh, 

 little larger than mice, without eyes or hair and only 

 the claws projecting. This lump the motlier bears 

 slowly hck into shape. Nor is anything more unusual 

 than to see a she-bear giving birth to cubs. Con- 

 sequently the males he in hiding for periods of forty 

 days, and the females four months. If they have 

 not got caves, they build rainproof dens by heaping 

 up branches and brushwood, with a carpet of soft 

 fohage on the floor. For the first fortnight they sleep 

 so soundly that they cannot be aroused even by 

 wounds ; at this period they get fat with sloth to a 

 remarkable degree (the bear's grease is useful for 

 medicines and a prophylactic against baldness). 

 As a result of these days of sleep they shvink in bulk 

 and they hve by sucking their fore paws. They 

 cherish their freezing offspring by pressing them to 

 their breast, lying on them just hke birds hatching 

 eggs. Strange to say, Theophrastus beheves that 

 even boiled bear's flesh, if kept, goes on growing 

 in size for that period ; that no evidence of food and 

 only the smallest amount of water is found in the 

 beliy at this stage, and that there are only a few 

 drops of blood in the neighbotn-hood of the heart 

 and none in the rest of the body. In the spring 

 they come out, but the males are very fat, a fact 

 the cause of which is not evident, as they have not 

 been fattened up even by sleep, except for a fortnight 

 as we have said. On coming out they devour a plant 



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