a Qgkar 



watery shoots, tender bark, young grasses, buds, 

 and leaves. In late autumn, just before hibernat- 

 ing, his last courses are mostly roots and nuts. 



However, the normal grizzly is an omnivorous 

 feeder, refusing only human flesh. He will eat any- 

 thing that is edible meat (fresh, stale, or car- 

 rion), wasps, yellow- jackets, grasshoppers, ants 

 and their eggs, bugs, and grubs. Of course he eats 

 honey and the bees. He also captures snakes, and 

 many a rat and rabbit. He is a destroyer of many 

 pests that afflict man, and in the realm of economic 

 biology he should be rated high. I doubt if a dozen 

 cats, hawks, or owls annually catch as many mice 

 as the average grizzly. 



The food of a grizzly is largely determined by 

 locality. Along the streams of the northern Pacific 

 Coast he lives chiefly upon fish, while the grizzlies 

 in the Bitter Root Mountains and British Colum- 

 bia generally feed upon roots and plants. Those in 

 the Rocky Mountains of Colorado and the South- 

 west have a mixed diet. 



The spring-beauty, the dog-tooth violet, and the 



shooting-star, both tops and roots, supply the 



grizzlies of some localities with much of their food, 



while in other regions they rarely, and possibly 



67 



