16 NORTHERN ZOOLOGY. 
them an easy prey to the hunter. The speed of the Black Bear when in pursuit is 
said not to be very great, and I have been told that a man may escape from it, 
particularly if he runs into a willow grove or amongst long grass: for the caution 
of the Bear obliges it to stop frequently and rise on its hind legs for the purpose 
of reconnoitring. I have, however, seen a Black Bear make off with a speed that 
would have baffled the fleetest runner, and ascend a nearly perpendicular cliff with 
a facility that a cat might envy. 
This Bear, when resident in the fur countries, almost invariably hibernates, sind 
about one thousand skins are annually procured by the Hudson’s Bay Company, 
from Black Bears destroyed in their winter retreats. It generally selects a spot 
for its den under a fallen tree, and having scratched away a portion of the soil, 
retires to it at the commencement of a snow-storm, when the snow soon furnishes 
it with a close, warm covering. Its breath makes a small opening in the den, 
and the quantity of hoar frost which occasionally gathers round the aperture serves 
to betray its retreat to the hunter. In more southern districts, where the timber 
is of a larger size, Bears often shelter themselves in hollow trees. The Indians 
remark that a Bear never retires to its den for the winter until it has acquired a 
thick coat of fat, and it is remarkable that when it comes abroad in the spring it 
is equally fat, though in a few days thereafter it becomes very lean. The period of 
the retreat of the Bears is generally about the time when the snow begins to lie 
on the ground, and they do not come abroad again until the greater part of the 
snow is gone. At both these periods they can procure many kinds of berries 
in considerable abundance. In latitude 65°, their winter repose lasts from the 
beginning of October to the first or second week of May; but on the northern 
shores of Lake Huron, the period is from two to three months shorter. In very 
severe winters, great numbers of Bears have been observed to enter the United 
States from the northward. On these occasions, they were very lean, and almost 
all males; the few females which accompanied them were not with young *. The 
remark of the natives above-mentioned, that the fat Bears alone hibernate, explains 
the cause of these migrations. The Black Bears in the northern districts couple in 
September, when they are in good condition from feeding on the berries then in 
maturity. The females retire at once to their dens, and conceal themselves so 
carefully that even the lyncean eye of an Indian hunter very rarely detects them ; 
but the males, exhausted by the pursuit of the female, require ten or twelve days 
to recover their lost fat. An unusually early winter will, it is evident, operate 
* PENNANT’S Arctic Zoology, vol. i. p. 60. 
