FUR FACTS 153 



spend much of their leisure time in the trees, often having special 

 ones which are used as sleeping quarters. 



One sometimes hears it claimed that a black bear can only climb 

 a tree around which he can conveniently clasp his front legs, man- 

 fashion. They can climb and that with almost equal ease, any tree 

 that will hold their weight; from a sapling so small that there is just 

 room for them to sink one set of hind claws above the other in a 

 straight line, to an old giant so big that they can only cling to its 

 face, squirrel-fashion, and behind the trunk of which (also squirrel- 

 fashion) they can hide, circling as you walk around it. 



Another curious fact about the black bear's sharp claws is that 

 they invariably match the owner's hide in color. A black animal always 

 has black claws, while a brown one has brown claws; and a 

 cinnamon-colored one has cinnamon-colored claws. This is not 

 true of the grizzly. 



The black bear received its name informally, as it were, from the 

 early settlers of New England, where the overwhelming majority of 

 the species happened to be black and where, by dint of saying, "I 

 saw a black bear in the woods this afternoon", people came to refer 

 to the animal as the black bear. Later on the name was sanctioned 

 by scientific baptism and the animal became officially known as the 

 American Black Bear. The designation, however, as we have seen, 

 is by no means universally descriptive. In the east, and in the middle 

 west, an occasional brown specimen is met with, but when the Rocky 

 Mountain region is reached there is a bewildering variation in the 

 coloring of the species. The majority of the breed are still black, but 

 at least a quarter and perhaps a third of the specimens show a dif- 

 ferent coloration. Of these probably the seal-brown are the most 

 numerous; but there are black bears of every conceivable shade, from 

 a light cream color, through the yellow browns, to a jet glossy black 

 never seen in the east. Occasionally albino black bears have been 

 killed and it is believed that the Inland White Bear may have origin- 

 ated from such albino or partly albino black bears. 



What may be the life span of the black bear in their free state it 

 is hard to say. They do not arrive at full maturity or growth until 

 their sixth or seventh year, and they probably live well beyond the 

 twenty-five year mark. They are hibernating animals which means 

 that in most, if not in all parts of their widely distributed range, they 

 pass a portion of the year asleep and without food or drink, in a den 

 or some sort of make-shift shelter. 



