658 NOTES OF A FUR HUNTER. 
clogged, she would clear it out with her paws. She threw 
the sieve and breadboard out into the kitchen very hand- 
ily. Another time she got in and took the eggs. They 
like milk, and honey, and molasses. One of mine would 
drink milk from a dipper, holding it in her fore-paws. 
One of my tame ones, if she got loose, would find every 
hen’s nest in the barn and eat the eggs. In the woods 
they feed on berries and beechnuts and acorns and roots; 
and they will eat meat of any kind, and will take bear’s 
meat for bait; they will eat fresh fish, corn, and pump- 
kins, and are fond of oats; in the spring they are fond 
of the offal left where moose are dressed. 
They strike their enemy and try to throw him down, 
and then bite and tear him. I never saw them hug, and 
don’t believe they do it. They can climb small trees as 
well as large ones; I have seen where one climbed a 
cherry tree not more than three inches in diameter. I 
kept one of my tame ones till she was six years old, and 
have time and again seen her climb a pole four inches 
through. She climbed with the ends of all her claws 
touching the pole; would climb deliberately, and a hun- 
dred times a day for gingerbread, apples, ete. She would 
walk hand over hand along a horizontal pole with her 
body hanging under it. They climb the tallest of beeches, | 
_ and break off limbs two inches through, and throw them 
down, and then come down and eat the nuts. If the 
limb wont break, they bite it with their teeth, and then . 
pull it toward them and break it. They also gather 4 
part of the top of the tree together, and eat the nuts 
there. 
Bears hibernate, going from three to four months with- 
- out eating; sometimes during December, January, Feb- 
=, and March, sometimes during January, February, 
