19G TTBSID^. 



of grass and herbs, digging for roots and turning over stones to 

 search for insects. Grass, herbs, and roots form their principal 

 food, with the addition of various fruits and seeds found in the 

 forest, or plundered -from the neighbourhood of villages. They 

 are fond of apricots, peaches, apples, midberries, walnuts, and buck- 

 wheat, to obtain which they descend into the valleys occasionally 

 when the fruits are ripe, soon returning, however, to the higher 

 slopes near the snow. Sometimes they are said to kill sheep or 

 goats, and they have been known to feed on the flesh of animals 

 they had killed or found dead. Dr. J. L. Stewart (P. A. S. B. 

 ]8()7, p. 175) records an instance of a large brown bear killing two 

 smaller bears in succession, and eating portions of their bodies. 

 In Europe the brown bear frequently kills and eats auiuials, it is 

 said even cattle and ponies ; but this may be due to vegetable food 

 being less abundant than on the Himalayas, where the brown bear, 

 as a rule, by general testimony is not carnivorous. 



Bears are dull of sight and hearing, and although they possess 

 good powers of smell, they appear inferior, even in this respect, 

 to many animals. They can move pretty quickly in a clumsy 

 gallop, but their usual pace is slow. They can climb trees, but in 

 the Himalayas, at all event, rarely do so. The Himalayan brown 

 bear is a very harmless animal, never attacking men, and very 

 rarely, if ever, showing fight even when wounded. 



The Himalayan brown bears pair at the end of September, in 

 October and November, and at that time males and females are 

 found together. They, howe\ er, go into separate winter-quarters. 

 The young, usually two in number (one with young females), are 

 born in AprU or May, the period of gestation being about 6 months. 

 Young bears, when born, are very small, scarcely larger than a 

 good-sized rat ; they are born hairless and blind, and remain with- 

 out sight for fuur weeks ; when they are three or four months old 

 they accompany the mother in her rambles. Cubs of two different 

 years are often found \A'ith the mother at the same time ; all remain 

 with her, as a rule, until nearly three years old, at which time they 

 are full-grown. In Kussia it is asserted that a male cub of the 

 previous year takes charge of the young belonging to the next 

 litter, and acts as a kind of nurse ; but this may be one of the 

 endless folk-lore stories that have accumulated about bears, as 

 about other formidable Carnivora. 



One of these stories is to the effect that bears, when attacking, 

 hug those whom they assail, and squeeze them to death. A 

 "bear's hug" is proverbial. The story is apparently without 

 foundation. A bear, from its anatomical structure, strikes round 

 with its paws, as if grasjjing, and the blow of its powerful arm 

 drives its claws into the body of its victim, causing terrible wounds, 

 but tli(^ idea of its " hugging '' a[)pears not condrmed by recent 

 observers. 



Bears are easily tamed, and it is not uiiconnnon to see examples 

 of this species led about the plains of India. These animals live 

 to a cons'.derabli! age; ; a brown bear lived in the well-known Stadt- 



