NATURALIST MEETS PROSPECTOR 105 



for possible danger. They appeared not to suspect 

 a near-by enemy. On a rock cliff that cut into the 

 sky a mountain lion crouched and occasionally 

 raised his head. For more than an hour he lay 

 looking down on the sheep. When the sheep 

 started to feed away from these rocks the lion de- 

 scended and disappeared. 



The first tree-top incident of my trip, though 

 interesting, lacked the amusing yet annoying fea- 

 tures of the later ones. In what is now Wild Basin 

 in the Rocky Mountain National Park, while 

 examining peeled places on high limbs — evidently 

 the work of porcupines — I chanced to look across 

 a small near-by opening and saw a little black bear 

 ambling along. He walked up to a limber pine 

 and climbed into it. Three limbs that outshot 

 from the trunk about thirty feet above the earth 

 afforded a resting place and he lay down upon his 

 back and apparently at once went to sleep. Black 

 bears may almost be considered perching animals, 

 for much of the time when not active they rest 

 or sleep in a tree-top. Each bear appears to have 

 one or more trees in his territory that he regularly 

 uses. 



Then began my adventures. 



In the neighbourhood of Arapahoe Peak I 

 climbed into another tree-top hoping to discover 

 the cause of the tree's dying condition. Climbing 

 outward on a huge, steeply inclined limb, I hugged 

 it closely and from time to time stopped to look 



