
A perfectly corking morning! Seems good to get out in 
the sunshine. Anemones and hepaticas are in bloom too, 
spring is here alright 


Boy, what an appetite!’ Hungry as a bear and nothing in 
sight but a colony of ants on that old log. Pretty small 
fryl 
Henry Braithwaite’s 
Tales of the Forest 
Photos by HARRY D. LISTER 
as the bear. My experience has been limited to the common 
black bear, but I suppose all species are the same with the 
exception of the Polar bear, his life under such different con- 
ditions making him unlike the other varieties. 
The most singular thing about bears is their going into their 
dens, sleeping all winter and coming out in the spring generally 
in better condition than when they went in. On coming out they 
eat nothing but mud and perhaps grass from spring holes. They 
will not eat any kind of bait, altho they may take it and cover 
or hide it for future use. 
Bears generally have denning places which they apparently use 
for years, in hollow trees, hollow logs or in cliffs among rocks. I 
remember once of coming on a very large bear track. I knew 
the bear had just come out of a den near by, as I saw the dirt 
on the snow that had fallen off his coat. Out of curiosity I took 
his track to see where he had denned. It was in burned woods 
and I hadn’t gone far when I came to where two trees had fallen 
across each other at right angles. The bear had evidently been 
overtaken by a snow storm, crawled under the trees for shelter 
and had gone to sleep and been snowed up. 
Bears den up any time from October to Christmas, depending 
upon the food supply. While they can get food they will stay 
out and I have seen them in two feet of snow. As soon as their 
food supply is gone they den up and usually come out in April. 
The first good rain in June generally starts bears shedding their 
hair, altho if they are late coming out of their dens, they will not 
shed so soon. I have caught them as late as the first of July 
and they hadn’t started to shed. 
My first experience with bears occurred when I was about twelve 
years old. There was a wild meadow some two miles back in 
the woods where we used to cut hay. On looking around one day, 
we discovered some good bear signs. My ambition to catch a 
bear was immediately aroused. 
I knew nothing about building traps, but I supposed an ordin- 
ary Marten trap, if built large enough, would catch a bear. A 
day or two later one of our little pigs died and thinking it would 
be good bait I shouldered it and started for the meadow. 
I had always heard that a bear couldn’t climb a tree unless he 
could hug it with his arms, so of course I thought all I had to do 
if I met the bear, was to climb a small tree. 
I worked half a day at my deadfall and found it a bigger 408 
than I had bargained for. Night coming on, I climbed a small 
ash tree and tied the little pig up in the branches, thinking it 
quite safe from the bears. The next day I returned to work on 
the trap and found the bear had been there, climbed the tree high 
enough to break it down and carried off the pig. I returned 
home with more respect for bears than I had ever had before. 
I wouldn’t go within a mile of the meadow after that. I didn’t 
want to be the next pig‘ taken. 
i Bee me no other animal in the woods has as much character 
HAVE often been asked what the bear’s principal food is. 
This would be a hard question to answer. It would be harder to 
find what they don’t eat than what they do. Individual bears 
will pass some foods and not notice them. What one bear will 
pass by, another may eat. And a bear may pass a certain food 
one time and eat it the next. 
A bear once went into one of my camps where a pan of ginger- 
bread was lying on a box with two pounds of pork hanging in a 
bag directly over it. He walked past the food to the other side 
of the fireplace, took down a towel and went off with it. I found 
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