FUR FACTS 155 



size of the cubs was reduced in proportion to the reduced abiHty of 

 the mother to nourish them. And that three or four eight-ounce 

 cubs do not make any undue demands on the resources of a three- 

 hundred or four-hundred pound mother is proved by the fact that 

 both she and they are normally in excellent condition when they 

 first come out in the spring. 



There is a widespread notion that bears are given to traveling in 

 company; that they are sociable animals, and that bear families, 

 father, mother, and children, are not only to be met with in the 

 woods, but den up together for the winter. This is not true. Only 

 mother and cubs or occasionally half-grown cubs of one litter ever 

 travel together. I have never heard from any reliable source, that 

 grown bears, male and female, ever travel in couples, even in the 

 mating season; nor where full grown bears denned up together. 



While not much of a traveler, the black bear will wander over a 

 fairly wide range in search of various foods in their season; yet, 

 broadly speaking, is pretty apt to live and die in the general neighbor- 

 hood of its birth. They wander both day and night, although when 

 they are in a region where grizzlies are also found they are careful 

 to disappear about the time that the latter, which are much more 

 nocturnal in their habits, may be expected to come out. When a 

 black bear has young cubs, she will stay for a week or two at a time 

 in one place, and will scratch a bed or nest among the leaves or in a 

 thicket and lie up there between feeds with the youngsters. 



As the cubs grow larger and stronger the mother wanders farther 

 afield with them, and, from sacrificing all her time and desires to 

 their needs and safety, comes gradually first to tolerate, and toward 

 the end of the season rather to resent, their persistent demands 

 upon her. For, like other animals, a bear, while showing the most de- 

 voted and courageous love for her children while they are helpless 

 has a very short-lived affection for them once they cease to need 

 her protection. 



An old bear hunter and naturalist writes that "Neither the black 

 bear nor the grizzly is really a sociable animal, but black bear oc- 

 casionally play together, which grizzlies never seem to do. Under 

 ordinary circumstances, however, black bears have a funny trick of 

 pretending not to see each other when they meet. If one of them 

 comes into a marshy meadow or a small open glade in the woods 

 where one or two others are already feeding, he will make the most 

 laughable pretense of not seeing them. He will stop at the edge of 

 the opening and go through all the motions of examining the country, 



