PLAY AND PRANKS OF WILD FOLK 205 



ineffectual attack on the bear. He finally walked 

 off into the woods, with the bear standing looking 

 regretfully after him. 



The boy-like black bear would rather play than 

 eat. Once I saw a black bear try repeatedly to get 

 a stupid, lumbering porcupine to play with him. 

 All the way across an opening he made efforts to 

 start a game, but dull porky lumbered on indiffer- 

 ently. The porcupine is the only animal that 

 I have known which I have never seen play. 



The black bear will play with bears, or with other 

 animals, or with people with apparently equal en- 

 joyment. In the Yellowstone I raced and dodged 

 about with several that were nearly wild, to my 

 own entertainment as well as theirs. Bears play less 

 often with objects. But I once watched a make- 

 believe battle which one was having with a 

 stump, and on another occasion I saw an older 

 bear with a cone, striking it about, tossing it into 

 the air, trying to catch it as it fell, and shaking it in 

 his teeth as he rolled about on his back with feet in 

 the air. 



In most cases neither birds nor animals use play- 

 things. But I have seen birds play with sticks, 

 stones, leaves, and nuts; an otter play with shells 

 and even using a live turtle for a plaything; and a 

 grizzly playing with a floating log. 



Rambling through the Medicine Bow Mountains 

 of Colorado, one afternoon, I .came upon a grizzly 

 bear sitting on his haunches like a dog and looking 



