Of course, once upon a time the bear lived only in places where it was very cold, and so he grew thick hair to keep out the cold; but now that he has a thick coat of hair, he cannot go down to hot countries to live. He does not mind living in a cold country; and the colder the country is, the thicker is his coat of hair.
What does the bear eat? Most kinds of bears eat berries, fruits, soft roots of trees, and fish when they can catch it. One or two kinds of bears eat other things also, which I shall tell you about very soon.
The bears that live in cold countries, where there is heavy snow in winter, cannot get anything at all to eat in winter. Why? Because there are no fruits and berries in winter, and the roots of trees are frozen hard and covered up by the snow.
Then if those bears cannot get anything to eat in winter, what do they do? They sleep!
You know that when you are asleep you do not feel hungry; but as soon as you wake up you feel hungry again. It is just the same with the bear; he does not feel very hungry while he sleeps. And he sleeps right through the winter months!
Still, while he is asleep all that time, does he not feel a little bit hungry? He does. So he uses up the store of food inside his body! I have told you that the camel carries a store of food in his hump. The bear has no hump, of course, but he has a thick chunk of fat all around his body just under his skin; and that chunk of fat is his store of food.
So, when the bear sleeps snugly in his den in the winter months, the chunk of fat is slowly used up inside his body, and keeps him from being very hungry.
Of course, he eats such a lot just before the winter, that the chunk of fat is very thick when he goes to bed. But the chunk is all used up when he wakes up at the end of the winter, and then he is very hungry again!
But there is a kind of bear that lives in a place where there is snow and ice almost all the time. What can he do?
He cannot sleep always! So he has to get something to eat now and then, and I shall tell you how he does that.