It is about a foot in length, but, on account of its numbers, is a most formidable enemy to the agriculturist. Even when seeking its daily food it is terribly destructive to the crops, but its worst raids are made at the end of the autumn, when it provides a store for the winter. For this purpose it excavates a deep and complicated system of burrows, in which it stores a quantity of grain so enormous that after the harvest the farmers are in the habit of digging up the hamster’s burrows and securing their stolen property.
A single hamster carried off sixty pounds of wheat for its winter store, while another had thought that a hundred weight of beans were necessary for its subsistence. The animal wakes very early from its hibernation, sometimes even in February. It does not, however, come out of its burrow at once, but remains beneath the earth until the warm weather has fairly set in.
Now we come to the bears.
I need not say that intertropical bears do not require to hibernate. Moreover of those bears which inhabit the colder climates the adult males seldom, if ever, hibernate, while the young of both sexes are very uncertain in this respect. For example, with the grizzly bear the young males and females are found at large throughout the whole of winter, and the same is the case with the polar bear. With the brown bear of Northern Europe and the black bear of North America the young animals seem to be rather capricious in hibernating.
In all cases, however, when the adult female bear is about to add to the family she prepares for hibernating. With the exception of the polar bear, who is obliged to form a most remarkable habitation, the female chooses a safe retreat long before it is required, and gradually conveys into it a large quantity of leaves, moss, and small branches, so as to make a comfortable bed.
Shortly before hibernating she becomes enormously fat, and the new fur which she puts on is quite half as long again as that of the summer raiment. Hunters, therefore, are naturally anxious to kill the bear just before hibernating.
In the first place, a fully developed winter fur, taken before it has been injured by use, will sell for twice as much money as the fur of the same animal when taken in summer or after hibernating. In the next place, the fat, which is so well-known as “bear’s-grease,” always commands a ready sale. Lastly, as bear’s meat, prepared either by freezing or smoking, forms the greatest part of winter food in many a family, it is a matter of the greatest consequence to have that meat in the best condition.
How valuable it is under such circumstances may be realized by reading the life of the old American hunter, Daniel Boone, and seeing how, when his wife and children were nearly dying of hunger and cold, he forced his way across the half-frozen river, succeeded in killing a bear, and by almost superhuman exertions transported all the meat across the river to his hut.
Supposing that the bear is not interrupted in her work, she retires to the den just before winter, and closes the entrance as well as she can.
In this place of refuge the young are born. They are at first scarcely larger than rats, but increase in size, drawing the whole of their nourishment from their mother, who takes no food during the whole of the winter and early spring. In consequence, when she and her young emerge, the latter are fat and strong, while the mother is but the shadow of her former self. Here again is a wonderful example of the many ways in which God “giveth meat to all flesh.”