I have known of other grizzlies who met strange deaths, but, considering the fairly numerous grizzly population at the time when I was wandering the wilds, the number of bodies found is surprisingly small. One of these grizzlies had perished in a forest fire, another in a desert flood, one was killed at the foot of a cliff by a falling stone, and another was crushed in a snow-slide. Just how or where most old grizzlies come to an end, or what becomes of their bones, I have never been able to learn. It may be that many of them die in the winter dens, which cave in and bury the remains. In closing his adventurous career the grizzly appears to conceal the trail to his last resting-place.
Making a Bear Living
Glancing across a beaver pond one day, I saw a big, grayish grizzly bear walk out into the grassy opening. My presence was not suspected, and I at once focused my field-glasses upon him. Here and there he went. As a grasshopper leaped into the air, the bear—big, fat, awkward, lumbering fellow that he was—leaped into the air after it. Striking the grasshopper with a fore paw, he would knock it to the ground and then pick it up with his teeth. Occasionally he advanced on all fours and slapped his paw upon the grasshopper before it leaped into the air. Once two grasshoppers flew up at the same instant. The bear stood still, located the spot where each had alighted, and then paid his respects to them in turn.
About this time another bear came into the opening within a hundred feet of the scene of activity. He was dark-gray, almost black, in color, but he too was a grizzly. After smelling here and there, the second bear dug out something; I think it must have been a nestful of mice. A minute later in the edge of the tall grass he found a bumblebee’s nest. This he ate in its entirety. Apparently two or three of the bees escaped, to judge from the bear’s rapid defense of his nose. Occasionally, as he walked about, he ate a huge mouthful of grass, taking three or four bites at a time.
Neither of these bears paid the slightest attention to the other. Though each must have known, from both scent and sight, that the other was near, they very successfully appeared to be oblivious of the fact. A beaver pond is often a neutral feeding and swimming place.
"As hungry as a bear" is an expression of variable meaning. About one third of the year a bear has an omnivorous appetite; for another four months he lives on short rations; and during the remainder of the year he goes on a food strike and hibernates.
A bear spends most of his waking hours making a living. He has simply a devastating appetite, and as his taste runs to small stuff and dainties, he is kept on the move.