20 THE BLACK BEAR OF PENNSYLVANIA 



Honey produces fat and the bear is led by instinct 

 to search for and devour it untiringly. Potter County 

 Legislators, working in the interest of the pot hunt- 

 ers, charge bears with destroying bee-keepers "scaps," 

 but as very few bees are raised in the County, the 

 losses are negligible 



A curious phenomenon takes place in the digestive 

 organs of the bdar enabling it to remain the entire 

 Winter without losing condition. The stomach be- 

 comes quite empty and, together with the intestines, 

 is contracted into a very small space. No food passes 

 through the system, for 'a mechanical construction 

 styled the "tappen" blocks the passage, remaining in 

 position until Spring. It is composed almost entirely 

 of pine leaves and substances from ants' nests which 

 bears devour avariciously. 



It is maintained that a hibernating bear, discover- 

 ed and killed in its den, is quite as fat as before it 

 retired to its resting place. At the end of four or five 

 months' sleep, it is claimed that the bear is as fat at 

 the beginning of its sleep ; but this fat is soon oxygen- 

 ized or burned up, when the animal begins to exercise 

 in open air and grow its fresh coat of hair, in Spring. 



During Winter,, bears gain new skin on the balls 

 oj: their feet, facilitated, no doubt, by their habit of 

 sucking their paws while hibernating. In its soft, 

 warm bed of moss and leaves, the bear dreams the 

 Winter days away, and the high cost of living may 

 go hang, in bruin's philosophy. Throughout our east- 



