The largest grizzly I have ever killed would not weigh more than 700 or 800 pounds, and I do not believe one has ever lived that would weigh 1,000 pounds. The flesh of the adult grizzly is tough, stringy, and decidedly unpalatable, but that of a young fat one is tender and juicy, and is always a welcome dish on the hunter's table.
The female usually gives birth to two cubs, and sometimes three, at a time. At birth they weigh only about 1-1/4 to 1-1/2 pounds each. The grizzly breeds readily in confinement, and several litters have been produced in the Zoological Gardens at Cincinnati. The female is unusually vicious while rearing her young, and the hunter must be doubly cautious about attacking at that time. An Indian rarely attacks a grizzly single-handed at any time, and it is only when several of these native hunters are together that they will attempt to kill one. They value the claws very highly, however, and take great pride in wearing strings of them around their necks.
The grizzly usually frequents the timbered or brush-covered portions of mountainous regions, or the timbered valleys of streams that head in the mountains. He occasionally follows down the course of these streams, and even travels many miles from one stream to another, or from one range of mountains to another, across open prairie. I once found one on a broad open plateau in the Big Horn Mountains, about half a mile from the nearest cover of any kind. He was turning over rocks in search of worms. At the report of my rifle he started for the nearest cañon, but never reached it. An explosive bullet through his lungs rendered him unequal to the journey.
Few persons believe that a grizzly will attack a man before he is himself attacked. I was one of these doubting Thomases until a few years ago, when I was thoroughly convinced by ocular demonstration that some grizzlies, at least, will attempt to make a meal off a man even though he may not have harmed them previously. We were hunting in the Shoshone Mountains in Northern Wyoming. I had killed a large elk in the morning, and on going back to the carcass in the afternoon to skin it we saw that Bruin had been there ahead us, but had fled on our approach. Without the least apprehension of his return, we leaned our rifles against a tree about fifty feet away, and commenced work. There were three of us, but only two rifles, Mr. Huffman, the photographer, having left his in camp. He had finished taking views of the carcass, and we were all busily engaged skinning, when, hearing a crashing in the brush and a series of savage roars and growls, we looked up the hill, and were horrified to see three grizzly bears, an old female and two cubs about two-thirds grown, charging upon us with all the savage fury of a pack of starving wolves upon a sheepfold.
To make a long story short, we killed the old female and one cub; the other escaped into the jungle before we could get a shot at him. The resolute front we put on alone saved our lives.
In another instance, when hunting deer in Idaho, I came suddenly upon a female grizzly and two cubs, when the mother bear charged me savagely and would have killed me had I not fortunately controlled my nerves long enough to put a couple of bullets through her and stop her before she got to me.
I have heard of several other instances of grizzlies making unprovoked attacks on men, which were so well substantiated that I could not question the truth of the reports.
The grizzly is partially nocturnal in his habits, and apparently divides his labor of obtaining food and his traveling about equally between day and night. It is not definitely known to what age he lives in his wild state, but he is supposed to attain to twenty-five or thirty years. Several have lived in domestication to nearly that age, and one died in Union Park, Chicago, a few years ago, that was known to be eighteen years old.
Notwithstanding the great courage and ferocity of this formidable beast, he will utter the most pitiable groans and howls when seriously or mortally wounded.
Two brothers were prospecting in a range of mountains near the headwaters of the Stinking Water river. The younger of the two, though an ablebodied man, and capable of doing a good day's work with a pick or shovel, was weak-minded, and the elder brother never allowed him to go any distance away from camp or their work alone. He, however, sent him one evening to the spring, a few rods off, to bring a kettleful of water. The spring was in a deep gorge, and the trail to it wound through some fissures in the rock. As the young man passed under a shelving rock, an immense old female grizzly, that had taken up temporary quarters there, reached out and struck a powerful blow at his head, but fortunately could not reach far enough to do him any serious harm. The blow knocked his hat off, and her claws caught his scalp, and laid it open clear across the top of his head in several ugly gashes. The force of the blow sent him spinning around, and not knowing enough to be frightened, he attacked her savagely with the only weapon he had at hand—the camp kettle.