2 28 The Mammals of Colorado 
While largely of nocturnal habits, bears may be found 
about at all hours of the day, especially in the less hunted 
regions. Still but few bears are seen by people, for a bear 
always avoids a person unless surprised in such a way 
that it cannot escape, so that even though one may be in a 
country where there are many bears, and indications of their 
presence plentiful, he may never lay eyes on one, unless he 
is especially looking and hunting for them. Despite his size 
and apparent clumsiness, a bear can move through brush 
very noiselessly, and very quickly too, if need be, so that the 
passer-by never suspects his presence. 
In the early days before the advent of the breech-loading 
rifle the Grizzly was much less afraid of man than he is to-day, 
and, according to the reports of the early hunters and travel- 
lers in our western regions, had not the slightest hesitation 
in attacking a man on very little provocation. The Journal 
of Lewis and Clark gives several instances which occurred 
on their journey, and the narratives of others of the early 
travellers relate the same sort of stories. But since the guns 
have been so much improved the bears have found it to their 
advantage to act with more discretion and less valor toward 
man. Lewis and Clark, and other pioneer explorers, often 
refer to the Grizzlies as "White Bears." 
One often reads reports of the enormous weights of 
bears killed by hunters, but these weights are always obtained, 
like those of the big fish that get away, by guess. The largest 
bear that was ever actually weighed of which we have any 
record was one which lived and died in Lincoln Park, 
Chicago. Its weight was 1,153 pounds. W. T. Hornaday 
thinks that the Rocky Mountains have not thus far produced 
a wild Grizzly weighing over 800 pounds. A Brown Bear 
killed by Captain Radcliffe, an English sportsman, in 
Alaska, in 1903, was cut up and weighed by him two days 
after it was killed. He had estimated the weight at 1,400 
