THE RACOON 219 



fish ; yet in the summer time it will eat a large quantity 

 of grass. The commonest and best known bears are the 

 brown bear of Europe and northern Asia and the 

 grizzly bear of North America — forms which some 

 naturalists consider as merely varieties of the same 

 species. Anyhow they are both very formidable animals. 

 In cold regions the brown bear hibernates, and the 

 varieties which inhabit warmer climes are smaller in 

 size than the northern forms. They once inhabited 

 England, are still found in the Pyrenees, and are 

 numerous in parts of Russia and also in Norway and 

 Hungary. In the Himalayas, where they are now very 

 numerous, they live at high elevations, and they come 

 out of their winter sleep about March or April, when 

 they feed largely on the bulbs of plants. They are very 

 fond of succulent sweet fruits, but are also often carni- 

 vorous, killing sheep or goats, or even cattle, and an 

 instance has been recorded of a large bear killing two 

 small ones and eating portions of them. Bears generally 

 walk slowly, but they can run pretty quickly in a clumsy 

 gallop. The young are born very small, scarcely larger 

 than a good- sized rat ; they are hairless, and remain 

 blind for four weeks. Cubs of two different years are 

 often found with the mother at the same time, and all 

 remain with her till nearly three years old. Bears, as 

 every one knows, are easily tamed, and they are also long- 

 lived. One of them, maintained by the State of Berne in 

 Switzerland, lived for forty-seven years, and a female 

 thirty-one years old bore young. Neither the brown 

 bear's sight nor its hearing is acute, but it has a delicate 

 sense of smell. In the Himalayas and also in Persia and 

 China a black bear is to be met with, and other species 

 of black bears are found in Japan and North America. 

 They are forest animals and eat fruit largely, as also 



