596 



REPORT OF STATE GEOLOGIST. 



woman, and began to shout and beat on some saplings with a club 

 and the bear slowly got out of the path, allowing them to make their 

 escape. A few days later, near the same place, two brothers and a 

 sister saw a bear lying high up in the forks of a tree. 



Not long after the events recounted above, a girl named Matilda 

 Blakely, in the same neighborhood, while washing clothes beside a 

 creek, was attacked by a bear which got his paws about the girl's 

 throat and injured her so badly that she was confined to bed for a 

 number of weeks. This bear, which was an old female, was killed 

 by the men who rushed to the girl's rescue on hearing her screams, 

 and three cubs were captured. 



In spite of their awkward appearance and clumsy movements, 

 bears are very active animals. They are very shy in regions where 

 they have been hunted, and are often treed by dogs, for they can 

 climb a tree with great agility. Mr. Rhoads says they will drop 20 

 or 30 feet from the branches of a tree when discovered by a hunter, 

 and make off unhurt. They can slip away through a dense thicket 

 and make scarcely any noise. 



It is well known that bears hibernate during the winter. How- 

 ever, they do not go into winter quarters until November or Decem- 

 ber, and now and then venture out even in mid-winter. As far as 

 I can learn, they do not suspend breathing ; certainly the heart does 

 not stop, during the hibernating period. 



The mating season is just before they begin to hibernate. The 

 young are born about forty days later, that is, in January or Feb- 

 ruary. The female remains in her den for some weeks longer. 

 From one to five cubs are produced in a litter, two or three being 

 the most frequent. 



With the possible exception of the opossum, no mammal is so 

 small when born, in proportion to its adult size. The naked and 

 blind cubs weigh only from 9 to 12 ounces when born. The adults 

 sometimes reach a weight of about 300 pounds, but probably do not 

 average more than 250 pounds. The increase in weight is, therefore, 

 from 300 to 650 per cent. 



The females breed but once in two or three years. The slow 

 rate of increase is compensated for, in part, by the immunity from 

 danger which adult bears have in their native haunts, and in part 

 by the care which the mother bestows on her offspring. They usu- 

 ally remain with her for two years, sometimes hibernating with her 

 the second winter. When they do this the mother probably does 

 not breed again until Ihc third year. 



The she-])ef>r will fight I'oi- her* cubs with great ferocity. Bears 



