URSUS AMERICANUS. 
95 
all sorts of fruits, green corn, &c. at low water feeds much on oysters, 
will watch their opening, and with its paw snatch out the fish; some- 
times is caught in the shell, and kept there till drowned by the com- 
ing in of the tide: fond also of crabs: climbs very nimbly up trees: 
hunted for its skin; the fur next to that of the beaver, being excellent 
for making hats.”* 
Family Ursid/E. 
URSUS AMERICANUS Pallas. 
Black Bear. 
This plantigrade mammal, the largest and most powerful of the in- 
habitants of the Adirondacks, is still abundant in most parts of the 
Wilderness. His proper home is within the deep evergreen forests, 
but he is something of a rover and at certain seasons, particularly in 
autumn, makes numerous excursions into the surrounding country. 
Notwithstanding the carnivorous position of the Bear he is par ex- 
cellence an omnivorous beast, and his larder consists not only of mice 
and other small mammals, turtles, frogs, and fish; but also, and large- 
ly, of ants and their eggs, bees and their honey, cherries, blackberries, 
raspberries, blueberries and various other fruits, vegetables, and roots. 
He sometimes makes devastating raids upon the barn-yard, slaying 
and devouring sheep, calves, pigs, and poultry. In confinement he 
shares with the inmates of the hog-pen whatever is left from his 
master’s table. 
He delights in tearing open old stumps and logs in search of the 
ants that make their homes in such situations, f and digs out the nests 
of the “ yellow-jackets,” devouring both the wasps themselves and the 
comb containing their honey and grubs. So fond is he of honey 
that he never misses an opportunity to rob a “ bee tree,” manifesting 
* Synopsis of Quadrupeds, 1771, pp. 199-200. 
\ While fishing in the North Bay of Big Moose Lake, during the summer of 1S81, Mr. Harry 
Burrell Miller, of New York city, heard a Bear tearing down an old stump that stood on a point in 
the bay. His guide, Richard Crego, noiselessly paddled him to the spot and he killed the Bear with 
one ball from his rifle. Its stomach contained about a quart of ants and their eggs. 
