MAMMALS. 93 



bear the cubs rushed up the nearest tree and remained until the 

 coast was clear and quiet again prevailed, when they would come 

 down and very cautiously approach the garbage ; but usually before 

 they reached the heap of tin cans another w-o-o-f of the mother in 

 pursuit of the stranger would again send them up the nearest tree. 

 The mother seemed anxious to have them get their share of the food, 

 and as soon as she had chased the intruder out of sight she would 

 come back to their tree and scratch on the trunk, when the young 

 would come down slowly and cautiously. During the half hour in 

 which we Vv^atched them they did not reach the food supply, but 

 probably succeeded in getting some of it later in the evening. A little 

 earlier there were said to be six bears at the garbage i^ile at one time, 

 including one brown, but some of them were not very tame and left 

 as soon as the tourists began to appear. The next day on the shore 

 of a little pond in the woods near Lake McDonald we heard a twig 

 snap and soon saw a medium-sized black bear feeding on the service- 

 berries only 20 or 30 yards away. He was so eager for the berries 

 that he did not notice us and went on eating the ripe, sweet fruit 

 hanging in luscious bunches from the bushes. He would stand up 

 straight on his hind feet and with both hands pull down branches 

 of the bushes and pick off the big purple berries with his lips and 

 tongue. After stripping one bush he waded into a small pond, across 

 which he swam and went off through the woods, making for a bear 

 an unusual amount of noise and crackling. He was probably one of 

 the garbage-pile bears which had lost some of his caution in finding 

 that man was after all a harmless animal. 



The story of the food of these bears gives most of their life history. 

 The old droppings of early spring showed a ravenous appetite that 

 was oft^n appeased by dry grass, pine needles, bits of rotten wood, 

 and bark that had been gathered up with a few ant-s, beetles, and 

 larvae that served to fill up and furnish a little nutriment. An occa- 

 sional feast on the carcass of some animal that has died or has been 

 killed during the winter helps out at this time of year, and the left- 

 over supply of winter fat helps carry them through the early spring- 

 time. As soon as vegetation starts a great variety of green plants 

 are eaten, and as the frost leaves the warm slopes many roots and 

 bulbs are dug up for food. The great yellow-flowered western dog- 

 tooth violets grow in profusion throughout the Canadian and Hud- 

 sonian Zones, and as they begin to come up and blossom at the lower 

 levels the bears dig the tender starchy bulbs in great numbers for 

 food. As they blossom soon after the snow has disappeared, there 

 is a continuous zone of the flowers creeping up the sides of the moun- 

 tains from May at the lower levels to late in August near timberline. 

 In the latter half of July they were at their best in the Hudsonian 



