PAINTINGS 
of Hunting scenes, Animals, 
Portraits, etc. Will paint to 
your suggestion, also make 
high-grade photographic one 
largements reasonable. 
member! pictures make aan 
cherished Xmas gifts. Write 
today. 
Matusek’s Studio 
1946 W. 21ST ST. 
CHICAGO, ILL. 


Fly Tying, Rod and 
Lure-Making Ma- 
terials and Supplies 

Quality Spend some pleasant and profit- 
Tackle, able time this winter making 
Tools, your own tackle. Send for Free 
Instruction 
Catalog and Christmas Present 
Books, etc. 
proposition. ' 
J. A. WILLMARTH, ROOSEVELT, 
FISHERMEN—ANGLERS 
Do You Want to Make Your Own Rod? 
Build It From Butt to Top? Wind It? 
Varnish It? Put on the Mountings? 
Complete It? 
NEW YORK 
For twenty years I have specialized 
in rod construction and am now in a 
position to this service. to 
Sportsmen throughout the country. 
offer 
9148—120th St., Rich 
CHAS. J. MOHR, Hill ioe thei New Yon 
Dry Fly Fishing Taught 
Accuracy and delicacy in fly cast- 
ing GUARANTEED. For terms apply 
to Mr. F. G. Shaw, The School for 
Salmon and Trout Fly Casting, 
PROSPECT PARK COURT 
147 Ocean Avenue 
Brooklyn, N. Y. 
THE PRESCOTT SPINNER 
“GETS-EM” 





Z, 
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OVERALL 
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Ask IPLAIN.......... 2S 
YOUR DEALER—SEND FOR cere 
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EG. U.S. 
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Pocket Automatic, .25 Cal. 
Wonderful value $6.45 
World’s Famous Lugers, a a7 
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Top Break Revolver, .32 or .38 
Cal. a $15.00 value’ for....$7.45 / sabes 
Send Cash or Money Order, or if 32 
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WATTS TRADING CO. 
11 Warren Street Dept. 552, New York 

In writing to Advertisers mention Forest and Stream, 







through it about waist high to me as 
I stood on. the skees, and just large 
jhe to get my head through. 
I slid up to it and looked in and 
you may imagine my surprise and ela- 
tion to see beneath me a large, glossy 
black bear in about the cosiest den 
that I had ever seen. The hole where 
she had entered at the ground level 
was packed solid with some six feet 
of snow above it, so she had entered 
either before or during the first snow 
late in November, and it was now 
nearing Christmas. 
I could not determine the sex at that 
time, but judged from her size -that 
she was a male. I was in a hurry to 
get out as many traps as possible and 
get back to camp some eight miles 
away, so hurried on knowing that I 
would have many opportunities to see 
her for the next three months, and 
you may be sure that I missed no op- 
portunity of doing so whenever I came 
that way. 
I never saw her when she was not 
shivering in the ten to thirty degree 
below zero weather. I never saw in 
her nor in any other bear in the depth 
of winter, vapor from the nostrils as 
in other animals in very cold weather. 
My dog, Bose, who had single-handed 
treed dozens of bears, and who ordi- 
narily would wind one a mile or more 
never got her scent nor that of any 
other bear in the den. I never could 
arouse her to wakefulness, further 
than to make her change her position, 
growl, smack her chops, and blow as 
only a bear can, by the most severe 
prodding with a sharp stick. She was 
in a deep stupor exactly as a man 
“dead drunk,” and the instant that I 
quit prodding her she was sound 
asleep. 
December and January passed and 
the second day of February arrived. 
The sun arose in splendor over the 
glistening snow. with not a cloud in 
sight, as I set out on my journey 
around the trap line. About a mile 
from our cabin was a groundhog’s den. 
I had: seen him there in the fall be- 
fore the snow came on, and had been 
skeeing over his burrow since the snow 
had fallen. You may imagine my sur- 
prise when I neared his habitation to 
see a considerable pile of fresh moist 
earth in my snowshoe trail and more 
following it in a spray, and shortly 
the animal himself come out and sit 
up on the mound of earth as though 
taking an observation, which he no 
doubt was. His shadow was visible 
from where I stood. He lingered but 
an instant and retired into his burrow 
again. 
When I reached the bear tree and 
looked down upon my bear it seemed 
that he was bigger than ever, and as 
I watched I saw a movement of, the 
It will identify you. 
abdomen as though there were some- 
thing alive inside, then I knew that 
my bear was a female, nearing the 
close of gestation. I was jubilant 
over the discovery and hoped to be 
present at the accouchement, but the 
marmot, that very candlemas day had 
predicted a great storm which began 
two days later and lasted for three 
weeks, and when it ended there was 
nine feet of snow on a level about our 
cabin. 
It was near a month before I got 
around my trap line again, and when 
Bose, who always led me on the trail 
by a few rods, came up to the bear 
tree he stopped and began to turn his 
head from side to side, with his ears 
pricked up as though listening to some 
strange sound. I hurried forward and 
when I came up with the dog I could 
hear a very peculiar noise that seemed 
to come from under the snow beneath 
my feet. I had never heard anything 
like it before in my life and couldn’t 
make out what it was. 
After puzzling over it for a few mo- 
ments I shoed up to the tree, pawed 
the snow away from the hole in the 
side of it, got down on my knees on 
the snowshoes and looked in. I fully 
expected to find cubs there, but was 
surprised to see two dark brown ones 
sucking my black bear. They were 
well furred, clinging to the teats like 
leeches and singing a baby bear song 
as they held on, and that was the 
noise that had puzzled myself and old 
Bose. I watched them a long time but 
they never let go of the teats for an 
instant while I was there, and it is 
my opinion that I would like very 
much to confirm, that they hang to the 
teats from the day of their birth con- 
tinuously for two or three weeks at 
least. Their song was indescribable 
and intermittent. They seemed to be 
alternately drawing the luscious, unc- 
tuous, lacteal liquid of life from their 
drunken mother, and humming a song 
of gladness for the bounty given. 
I looked carefully for the secun- 
dines, but they were nowhere to be 
seen, nor were there any signs of blood 
or amniotic fluid on the floor of the 
den. What became of the placenta 
and fluids of parturition? Does the 
female bear awaken from the torpor 
of hibernation at the birth of her off- 
spring and assist the tender cubs to 
her breast, or does she sleep stupidly 
through it all? How are we to account 
for the absence of the placenta, or 
how was it disposed of? 
I raised those two cubs to full grown 
bears, and their color never changed 
from the original brown that I first 
saw them in. They were the most in- 
teresting pets that I ever knew, and 
a record of the antics of Spunky and 
Growler would make mighty interest- 
ing reading, if put on paper. 
Page 750 
