BEARS. 
29 
found solitary or in pairs, or three together; in the latter case a female with two 
cubs, often nearly or quite full-grown. Occasionally four or five are met with in 
company. They inhabit bush and forest, jungle and hills, and are particularly 
fond of caves in the hot season and monsoon, and also when they have young. 
Throughout several parts of the peninsula of India there are numerous hills of a 
granitoid gneiss that weathers into huge loose rounded masses. These blocks 
remain piled on each other, and the great cavities beneath them are favourite 
resorts of bears, as in such places the heat of the sun, and some of the insects that 
are most troublesome in the monsoon can be avoided. In the cold season, and at 
other times when no caves are available, this animal passes the day in grass or 
bushes, or in holes in the banks of ravines. It roams in search of food at night, 
and near human habitations is hardly seen in the daytime; but, in wild tracts 
uninhabited by man, it may be found wandering about as late as eight or nine 
o’clock in the morning, and again an hour or even more before sunset in the 
afternoon. In wet or cloudy weather, as in the monsoon, it will sometimes keep 
on the move all day. But the sloth-bear, although, like most other Indian animals, 
it shuns the midday sun, appears by no means so sensitive to heat as might be 
expected from its black fur, and it appears far less reluctant to expose itself at 
noonday than is the tiger. I have seen a family of bears asleep at midday in May 
on a hillside in the sun. They had lain down in the shade of a small tree, but the 
shade had shifted without their being disturbed. It is scarcely necessary to observe 
that this bear does not hibernate. Owing to its long, shaggy, coarse fur, its 
peculiarly shaped head, its long mobile snout, and its short hind-legs, this is 
probably the most uncouth in appearance of all the bears, and its antics are as 
comical as its appearance. Its usual pace is a quick walk, but if alarmed or 
hurried it breaks into a clumsy gallop, so rough that when the animal is going 
away it looks almost as if propelled from behind and rolled over and over. It 
climbs over rocks well, and, like other bears, if alarmed or fired at on a steep 
hillside, not unfrequently rolls head-over-heels down hill. It climbs trees, but 
slowly and heavily; the unmistakable scratches left on the bark showing how 
often its feet have slipped back some inches before a firm hold was obtained.” 
As might have been predicted from the small size and half-rudimentary 
condition of its molar teeth, the food of the sloth-bear consists almost exclusively 
of fruits, flowers, and insects, together with honey. Its favourite fruits appear to be 
those of the ebony tree, the jujube-plum, several kinds of figs, and the long pods of the 
cassia. Whether grapes, as shown in our illustration, form also part of the diet of 
these bears, or whether this is merely a fancy on the part of the artist, we are unaware. 
During the months of February and March, in many parts of India, the beautiful 
fleshy scarlet flowers of the mowha tree are nightly shed in great profusion, and 
form a rich feast for many denizens of the jungle, prominent among which is the 
sloth-bear, by whom these flowers are greatly relished. In addition to beetles and 
their larvae, as well as young bees and honey, the sloth-bear is also passionately 
fond of white ants or termites. On this point Colonel Tickell, as abridged by Dr. 
Jerdon, observes that “the power of suction in this bear, as well as of propelling 
wind from its mouth, is very great. It is by this means it is enabled to procure 
its common food of white ants and larvae with ease. On arriving at an ant-hill, 
