368 AN AMERICAN HUNTER 



in hunting for grubs, insects, frogs and small mammals. 

 In some neighborhoods they do not eat fish, while in other 

 places, perhaps not far away, they not only greedily eat 

 dead fish, but will themselves kill fish if they can find 

 them in shallow pools left by the receding waters. As 

 soon as the mast is on the ground they begin to feed upon 

 it, and when the acorns and pecans are plentiful they eat 

 nothing else; though at first berries of all kinds and 

 grapes are eaten also. When in November they have 

 begun only to eat the acorns they put on fat as no other 

 wild animal does, and by the end of December a full- 

 grown bear may weigh at least twice as much as it does 

 in August, the difference being as great as between a very 

 fat and a lean hog. Old he-bears which in August weigh 

 three hundred pounds and upward will, toward the end 

 of December, weigh six hundred pounds, and even more 

 in exceptional cases. 



Bears vary greatly in their habits in different local- 

 ities, in addition to the individual variation among those 

 of the same neighborhood. Around Avery Island, John 

 Mcllhenny's plantation, the bears only appear from June 

 to November; there they never kill hogs, but feed at first 

 on corn and then on sugar cane, doing immense damage 

 in the fields, quite as much as hogs would do. But when 

 we were on the Tensas we visited a family of settlers who 

 lived right in the midst of the forest ten miles from any 

 neighbors; and although bears were plentiful around 

 them they never molested their corn fields in which the 

 coons, however, did great damage. 



A big bear is cunning, and is a dangerous fighter to 



