118 THE TOWER MENAGERIE. 
brown, and finally fixes in the glossy black tint of ma- 
ture age. 
The habits and manners of the Black Bear resemble 
those of the brown almost as closely as his physical 
characters. In a state of nature he seeks the recesses of 
the forest, and passes his solitary life in wild and uncul- 
tivated deserts, far from the society of man, and avoiding 
even that of the animal creation. His usual food con- 
sists of the young shoots of vegetables, of their roots, 
which he digs up with his strong and arcuated claws, 
and of their fruits, which he obtains by means of the 
facility with which the same organs enable him to climb 
the loftiest trees. He possesses indeed the faculty of 
climbing in a most extraordinary degree, and frequently 
exercises it in the pursuit of honey, of which he is pas- 
sionately fond. When all these resources fail him, he 
will attack the smaller quadrupeds, and sometimes even 
animals of considerable size; familiarity with danger 
diminishing his natural timidity, and the use of flesh 
begetting a taste for its continued enjoyment. He is 
also said, like the Polar Bear, to have a peculiar fond- 
ness for fish, and is frequently met with on the borders 
of lakes and on the coast of the sea, to which he has 
resorted for the gratification of this appetite. Notwith- 
standing his apparent clumsiness, he swims with the 
greatest dexterity, the excessive quantity of fat with 
which he is loaded serving to buoy him up in the water ; 
in this way he frequently crosses the broadest rivers, or 
even very considerable arms of the sea. 
The entire continent of North America, or perhaps it 
might be more correct to Say, that immense portion of 
