THE LIFE OF AIAAIMALS 
The recorded experience of men who have met bears in their 
native wilderness is most contradictory. Here is a powerful 
and well-armed beast of prey, which must be ex- 
pected to act like one; yet many persons declare 
bears peaceful and even timid, rather than aggressive, except 
in defense of their young, of whose safety the mother is anx- 
iously jealous; the cubs are so extraordinarily helpless when 
little, that she must care for them far more than need most 
other animals. Wildcats, fishers, minks, wolves, and foxes, — 
all search for them as tidbits. Hence the mother is justly sus- 
picious of everything, and liable to rush upon a man unpro- 
voked, for fear that he meditates harm to her treasures, but 
otherwise a bear will frequently show no hostility, or will 
even run away. I have known two full-grown grizzlies, sur- 
prised upon a mountain top in Colorado, to flee at break-neck 
speed down a rocky slope when a couple of men appeared. 
The ice bears of Spitzbergen are fearlessly attacked with spears 
by the Norwegian walrus hunters, who bring back a hundred 
or more of their skins annually. Many stories are told of per- 
sons who have met our black bears in the woods face to face 
and received no harm. The Syrian bears are noted for their 
gentleness; they required a special command before it occurred 
to them to eat up the young hoodlums who were hooting at 
Elijah — and they were ‘“she-bears 
On the other hand cases abound of attack as savage and 
resistless as it was unexpected: a notable instance is re- 
corded of the grizzly by President Roosevelt, and others are 
given in an admirable survey of the question by Porter.’® 
When one is aroused to fight, its boldness and strength make it 
exceedingly formidable, and a blow from one of its paws is of 
killing force. A grizzly has been known to break the neck of a 
bison with one such stroke. That seems to be the customary 
method of attack, followed by clawing and biting, for the 
popular notion that a bear hugs its victim to death has no 
218 
Bears and 
Man. 
coun 
