Black Bruin: The Biography of a Bear

by Clarence Hawkes

Bruin's disposition also varies with the climate he inhabits. This in turn is because his diet varies in differing latitudes. The farther south he ranges, the more of a vegetarian he becomes. Consequently, he is not so ferocious. The great white polar bear is largely carnivorous, so he is a creature not to be trifled with; while on the other hand, the little African sun bear is a rollicking, social, good-natured little chap, weighing many times less than his fierce cousin.

Formerly, it has been supposed that the Numidian lion and the Bengal tiger were the largest carnivorous animals in existence, but more recent discoveries show that our Alaskan brown bear, found upon the peninsulas of lower Alaska and Kodiak Island, is easily the master of either, in size or strength. Some of the splendid skins taken from these, the largest of all the bears, measure fourteen feet in length. Alaska also gives us the smallest North American bear, the glacial bear.

Californians are wont to tell us that the only true grizzly is that found upon the cover of the Overland Monthly, but they overlook the fact that the name was given to bears found along the Missouri River by Lewis and Clarke, years before California, with all its wealth, was discovered.

In Russia, a fine specimen of the family is found in the Ural Mountains. His peculiarity is a white collar about the neck, so his Latin name, Ursus collaris, means the bear with a collar. All through the Himalayas, this restless plantigrade has wandered, and even far down upon the low-lying plains of India and China; but all the way he shuffles and shambles and is the same droll fellow.

The bear's vegetable diet consists of berries, nuts and many kinds of roots. He will not refuse sweet apples and pears when he can find them. In the tropics he eats nearly all the fruits that the natives eat and leads altogether a lazy, luxurious life. Since food is plentiful in these warm climates, he does not have to cross the path of man to get it, or be forced to steal, as the bear living in colder climes often does; so he is a good-natured, easy-going fellow, who will let you alone if you do not pick a quarrel with him. This is much more true of bears in general, than is usually supposed.

In the tropics, the bear does not have to hibernate to keep the fat that he has gained in the time of plenty upon his ribs. So his period of sleeping is very short and in many cases he does not hibernate at all; while, on the other hand, the bear of the cold northland sleeps nearly half of the year.

Hibernation seems to be a wise provision of nature by means of which the bear conserves his flesh and strength during extreme weather. When the ground is covered several feet deep with snow, it will readily be seen that berry-picking would be difficult, and nuts and roots would be hard to find, as would the ants and grubs under logs and stones, with which the bear varies his diet in fine weather. The chipmunks and mice have also denned up, so there is not much for bruin to do but sleep.

There is one weakness that I believe the bear always indulges whenever he can, no matter in what clime he be found, and that is a love for sweets, especially honey. He will dare the sharp bayonets of the most angry swarm of bees or climb the worst tree, if he feels at all certain that there will be honey after his pains. In some countries, he damages a great many telephone and telegraph poles and wires by climbing the poles in search of that swarm of bees, which he imagines he hears humming, inside the pole.

In the temperate zone bears mate in the summer months and the young are born late in January, during hibernation. Bear-cubs are very small babies for such large parents, weighing much less in proportion to their dams than most other mammals. They are blind, helpless and almost hairless.

As the old bear is very fat when they are born and they do nothing but sleep in the dark den, they grow rapidly, so that when they are finally brought forth at the age of perhaps four months, they have developed wonderfully and would hardly be recognized as the tiny blind cubs of a few weeks before.