150 WILD ANIMALS. 



personal study of its habits, " but their hibernation is not pro- 

 found, and it is prudent not to take too many liberties with them 

 when in this condition. The exact period when the event takes 

 place is determined by the food supply and the severity of the 

 season. If the beech-nut crop has been a failure, and deep snows 

 come early, they generally den near the commencement of winter. 

 If, on the contrary, there has been a good yield of mast, and the 

 winter a mild one (and it is a fact that with us good beech-nut 

 years are commonly followed by open winters), the males prowl 

 about nearly, or quite, all winter, and the females only den a 

 short time before the period of bringing forth their young. 

 Indeed, it can be set down as a rule that so long as the male bear 

 can find enough to eat he will not den, be the weather ever so 

 severe ; for it is evident that he does not den to escape either the 

 low temperature or the deep snows, but to thus bridge over a 

 period when, if active, he would be unable to procure suflBcient 

 food. And the female, under similar circumstances, remains out 

 till the maternal impulse prompts her to seek a shelter for her 

 prospective offspring ; and in this wilderness they have been found 

 travelHng as late as the middle of January. 



" The den is not commonly much of an affair. It is generally a 

 partial excavation under the upturned roots of a fallen tree or 

 under a pile of logs, with perhaps a few bushes and logs scraped 

 together by way of a bed, while to the first snowstorm is left the 

 task of completing the roof and filling the remaining chinks. Not 

 unfrequently the den is a great hole or cave dug into the side of a 

 knoll, and generally under some standing tree whose roots serve 

 as side-posts to the entrance. The amount of labour bestowed 

 upon it depends upon the length of time the bear expects to 

 hibernate. If the prospects point towards a severe winter, and 

 there is a scarcity of food, they den early, and take pains to make 

 a comfortable nest ; but when they stay out late, and then den in 

 a hurry, they do not take the trouble to fix up their nests at all. 

 At such times they only crawl into any convenient shelter, with- 

 out gathering so much as a bunch of moss to soften their bed. 

 Snow completes the covering, and as their breath condenses and 

 freezes into it, an icy wall begins to form, and increases in thick- 



