404 Fretp Museum or Naturat History — Zodroey, Vo. XI. 
Josselyn says: “‘The Bear they live four months in Caves, that is 
all Winter; in the spring they bring forth their young ones, they seldom 
have above three Cubbs in a litter, are very fat in the Fall of the Leaf 
with feeding upon Acorns, at which time they are excellent Venison; 
their Brains are venemous; They feed much upon water Plantane in 
the Spring and Summer, and Berries, and also upon a shell-fish called 
a Horse-foot; and are never mankind, 7. ¢., fierce, but in rutting time, 
and then they walk the Country twenty, thirty, forty in a Company, 
making a hedius noise with roaring, which you may hear a mile or 
two before they come so near to endanger the Traveller.’’* 
Wood writes: ‘Most fierce in strawberry-time at which time they 
have young ones; at which time likewise, they will go upright, like a 
man, and climb trees, and swim to the islands; which if the Indians see, 
there will be more sportful bear-baiting than Paris garden can afford; 
for, seeing the bears take water, an Indian will leap after him; where 
they go to water-cuffs for bloody noses and scratched sides. In the 
end, the man gets the victory; riding the bear over the watery plain, 
till he can bear him no longer.’’t 
Specimens examined from Wisconsin and adjoining states: 
Wisconsin — ‘Northern Wisconsin,” 3; (O. C.) Price Co. (skulls), 2; 
(S. C.) Cayuga, Ashland Co. (skull), 1; (O.) Washburn Co., 1; Polk 
Co., 1=8. 
Michigan — Park Siding, Iron Co. (skull), 1. 
Minnesota — (brown phase), 2. 
* New England Rarities, 1672, p. 48.° 
t New England’s Prospects, 1634, p. 16. 
