In another tree he uncovered a feast of ants and their eggs. Once a grasshopper alighted against another tree-trunk up which he was climbing. Downy seized him instantly. In one tree-top he consumed an entire tent-caterpillar colony. In four hours he examined the trunks, larger limbs, and many of the smaller ones of one hundred and thirty-eight apple trees. In this time he made twenty-two excavations, five of which were large ones. Among the insects devoured were beetles, ants, their eggs and their aphids, a grasshopper, a moth or two, and a colony of caterpillars. I followed him closely, and frequently was within a few feet of him. Often I saw his eyes, or rather one eye at a time; and a number of times I imagined him about to look round and with merry laugh fly away, for he frequently acted like a happy child who is closely watching you while all the time merrily pretending not to see you. Yet, in all those four hours, he did not do a single thing which showed that he knew of my nearness or even of my existence!
Examining each tree in turn, he moved down a long row and at the end flew without the slightest pause to the first tree in the next row. From here he examined a line of trees diagonally across the orchard to the farther corner. Here he followed along the outside row until he flew away. The line of his inspection, from the time I first saw him until he flew away, formed a big letter "N."
During a wind-storm in a pine forest a dead tree fell near me and a flying limb knocked a downy, stunned, to the earth, by my feet. On reviving in my hands, he showed but little excitement, and when my hands opened he pushed himself off as though to dive to the earth; but he skimmed and swung upward, landing against a tree-trunk about twenty feet distant. Up this he at once began to skate and sidle, exploring away as though nothing had happened and I were only a stump.
Little Boy Grizzly
Little Boy Grizzly