THE BLACK BEAR.
My father, being one of the very first pioneers of Jackson County,
Missouri, abundant opportunity was afforded me to become acquainted with
the habits of wild animals of every description which at that time
roamed in that unsettled portion of the country, such as elk, deer,
bear, and panther.
Among these animals the most peculiar was the black bear, which was
found in considerable numbers. Bears, in many respects, differ from all
other animals; they are very small when born, and when grown the
females, in their best state of fatness, will weigh from two hundred and
fifty to three hundred and fifty pounds. The male bears weigh at their
best much more; from four hundred to five hundred pounds. They are
remarkably intelligent animals, and are very wild, wanting but little to
do with civilization, for as soon as white people made their appearance
in the regions of country inhabited by them, it was not long before they
migrated to other portions of the country. To the early settlers of the
new country bear meat proved of great value, being very fat, and on
account of this great fatness particularly useful to them in the
seasoning of leaner meats, such as wild turkey, venison, etc., which
constituted much of the living of the early settlers or pioneers of the
Mississippi and Missouri valleys.
The bear's life each year is divided into three distinct periods. From
the first of April to the middle of September they live upon vegetables,
such as they can find in the wild woods, fruits of every description,
and meats of every kind, from the insect to the largest animal that
lives; periwinkles, frogs, and fish of all kinds; all living things in
the water as well as on the land. From the middle of September they
cease to eat of the various things they have lived on during the summer,
and take entirely to eating mast, that is, acorns, beech-nuts, pecans,
chestnuts, and chincapins. On commencing to eat mast, they begin to
fatten very rapidly. I should have remarked that during the summer
months, the season in which they live on insects and meats of every
variety, they lose every particle of the fat they had accumulated while
eating mast. On account of his abstemious habits the prohibitionists
should value the bear as emblematical of their order. Coming out of
their long sleep the first of April, or when the vegetation has grown
sufficient for them to feed upon, they commence to eat herbs, meats, and
fruits of every kind. They are remarkably fond of swine at this period,
and unlike the wolf, who seeks to catch the _young_ pigs, the bear picks
up the mother and walks off with her. She affords him a splendid
opportunity for so doing, it being a trait of the mother hog, as it is
of the mother bear, to fight ferociously for her young. The strength of
the bear is phenomenal. They can take up in their mouths and carry off
with perfect ease an ordinary sized hog, calf, or sheep. During this
season they frequent corn fields, devouring the corn when it comes to
the size of roasting ears. Indeed there is little to be found that is
edible by man or beast that the bear at some period of his life does not
eat. When they commence eating mast, which is about the middle of
September or the first of October, as stated, they eat nothing else
until about the 15th to the 20th of December, by which time most of them
become exceedingly fat; so much so, indeed, that in some cases it is
difficult for them to run very fast, not half as fast as they could
before becoming so fat. All of the very fat ones, about the middle of
December, cease to eat or drink anything, make themselves beds and lie
down in them, preparatory to going into their caves or dens for their
long sleep. They lie in these beds, which may be several miles from the
caves in which they intend to take their winter sleep, several days, or
sometimes a week, and by this temporary stay in the open air, nature is
given time to dispose of every particle of water and food in the body.
After this time has elapsed, they leave these temporary beds and go as
straight as the crow flies to their intended quarters, which are
generally caves in the rocks, if such can be found in the regions they
inhabit. This sleep is taken when the animals are the very fattest. None
but the very fat ones go through the period of hibernating. They do not
lose one pound's weight during this sleep, unless it be in respiration,
which is a very small quantity compared with the entire mass, for no
excretions are made during that period. Entering the caves they remain
there from three to four months, this being their dormant or hibernating
period, and for this reason they are known among hunters as one of the
family of seven sleepers. Each makes his bed in the bottom of the cave
by scratching out a large, round, basin-shaped place in the dirt; these
beds after being once made remain intact, as the caves are invariably
dry, and are used by the same bear year after year if he is not
disturbed; and after his demise will be adopted by another of his kind.
Some of these caves have been perhaps for ages during the winter time
the abode of a number of these "seven sleepers."
In my opinion there is no animal in the world that is so healthy, and
the meat of which is more beneficial to mankind, than is the meat of the
black bear. The doctors invariably recommend it for patients who are
troubled with indigestion or chest diseases. Bear's oil (for that is
what it really is) is considered a better curative and much preferable
on account of its pleasant taste, to cod-liver oil, which is very
disagreeable.
In settling the Mississippi Valley, when bear's meat was such a factor
in the way of food, each of the frontiersmen kept a pack of dogs--all
the way from three to half-a-dozen--partly for bear hunting, which was a
very exciting sport, in fact the most of any other game hunting. I have
been long and well acquainted with the courage shown by dogs in hunting
and fighting game, and there is nothing I ever saw a dog undertake that
arouses his courage so much as a contest with a bear. The dog seems to
think a fight with a bear the climax of his existence. One familiar
with, and accustomed to, bear hunting can tell at long distances whether
the dogs are having a combat with a bear or some other animal, by the
energy they put into their yelping. When fighting a bear the dogs
continually snap and bite at his hind legs, as this is the only way they
have of exasperating and irritating him, as they dare not approach him
in front.
The full-grown bear is able to stand off any number of dogs that can get
around him. So strong are they that if they can get hold of a dog in
their forearms or mouth, he is very likely to be killed. The large
she-bear can take an ordinary sized dog in her fore paws and crush him
to death, and they can strike with such force as to send the sharp nails
of their paws fairly through the dog. On account of the adeptness with
which bears use their fore paws, the dogs try constantly to be in their
rear, and the bears are always trying to confront them. The bear in
moving his paws to strike never draws them back, but invariably makes a
forward movement, which is a surprise to the dogs, as it gives them no
warning, hence the aim of the former to confront the enemy, and of the
latter not to be confronted.
I have stood several times, when a boy, upon the doorstep of my father's
log-cabin and watched the men and dogs in their chase after a bear, only
a few hundred yards away. This was, of course, only a few months after
the first settlers came into the country, for it was the habit of these
bears to leave as soon as they knew the white people had come to stay.
Bears roam in the very thickest woods and roughest portions of the
country, and it is difficult to find one so far away from the rough
woods that he can not reach such locality in a very few moments after he
is attacked; and unlike other game that was found on the frontier,
instead of trying to get into the open prairie, where they can run, they
make at once after being disturbed for the cliffs of the rivers and
creeks and the canebrakes; in fact into the very roughest places they
can find, and take the shortest cut to get to them.
Bears do not depend on the senses of sight and hearing for their
protection as much as upon the sense of smell, by which they can
distinguish perfectly their friends or enemies. The scent of man would
strike terror to their hearts as much as the sight of him, and they
scent him much farther than they can see him, especially when they are
in the thick woods or canebrakes, where they often feed.
Frequently instead of fighting dogs on the ground, when tired, the bear
climbs a tree, sometimes going up fifty feet, and there rests, lodged in
a fork or upon a limb, surveying with complacency the howling pack of
dogs, and they in turn, becoming more bold as the distance between their
victim and themselves increases, defiantly extend their necks toward
their black antagonist in the tree. Notwithstanding the bear's dread of
the howling pack of dogs in waiting for their prey, if he sees a _man_
he loses his hold and drops, falling among the dogs, sometimes falling
on one or more and killing them.
I have known the hunter to be so cautious in showing himself that before
he came near enough to shoot he would select the trunks of large trees,
hiding behind them as he approached, until being near enough, and
concealed from the bear by one of these trunks, he moved his head a
little to one side to take aim; the moment he moved his head sufficient
to do so, if the bear chanced to be looking that way, he would let go
his hold and drop, showing that, after all, he knew where the real
danger was.
It is very desirable in bear hunting that the bear should climb a tree
and give his pursuer an opportunity to fire at him there, for while he
is in the fight with the dogs it would be almost impossible for the
hunter to shoot the bear without taking the chance of injuring or
killing one or more of the dogs. The dogs are also in great danger when
a bear weighing from three to five hundred pounds falls a distance of
forty or fifty feet, be the bear dead or alive. No other animal that I
know of could fall such a distance and not be more or less hurt, but
bears are not injured in the least, being protected by their immense
covering of fat, which forms a complete shield, or cushion, around the
body.
The bear can stand on his hind legs just as easily as a man can stand on
his feet, and in their fights with dogs they shield themselves by
standing up against large trees, cliffs, or rocks, so that the dogs have
no chance at them except in front. In this position they can stand off
any number of dogs, and the dogs well know the danger of approaching
from the front. No body of drilled men could act their part better than
the dogs do, without any training whatever, which is a great proof of
their intelligence.
The moment a bear shows that he is about to climb a tree in order to get
out of the ground scuffle with his opponents, the dogs, and attempts to
do so, the dogs with one accord pitch at him, until there are so many
hanging to his hind legs that often he can not climb, and falls on his
back to rid himself of and to fight them. He can fight when on his back
as well as in any other position, for he embraces them in his arms, by
no means gently.
He may try climbing a tree three or four times before he can
sufficiently rid himself of the dogs; even then, perhaps, he may have
one or two hanging to his legs, which he carries with him maybe ten or
twelve feet up the tree, and the dogs, under the greatest excitement,
keep perfect consciousness of the distance, and they are able to fall
without being injured.
Let us now turn our attention to the mothers, or she-bears. They become
mothers during the period of their hibernation, going into the caves at
the time already mentioned when the other fat bears hibernate, and lie
dormant until the time their cubs are born, which is about the middle of
February. These require a great deal of the mother's attention, and she
is faithful and follows her motherly instincts to her own death, if need
be. After the cubs are born she goes once every day for water, which,
with her accumulated fat, produces milk for the sustenance of her young,
she having selected her cave near a stream of running or living water.
She does not eat a particle of any food from the first of December to
the middle of April. By the time she leaves her bed, where she has been
for four months in solitude, the cubs are sufficiently large to follow
the mother, and should any danger threaten them, to climb a tree, which
they are very quick to do, and if they do not do so at the bidding of
the mother at once, she catches them up in her fore paws and throws them
up against the tree, giving them to understand they must climb for their
protection. The male bear is the greatest enemy the mother and the cubs
have to look out for; for unless protected by the mother, he will seize
and eat the cubs, during the season of the year when bears eat meat, but
he is not disposed to hurt the mother bear, unless in a scuffle in
trying to get hold of the young; therefore it is necessary for her to
have her little ones with her every moment after they come out of the
cave where they are born, and where they stay for more than two months
before they are brought out into the sunlight.
Should danger threaten, and there is a small tree near, she will
invariably make her cubs climb it, where they are safe, because the
large male bear can not climb very small trees. If she is compelled to
send her cubs up a large tree, she stands ready and willing to sacrifice
her life for the protection of her young, and not in the annals of
natural history can there be found a mother which shows such desperation
in the protection of her young as does the mother bear.
Nothing daunts her when her cubs are imperiled, and neither man nor dogs
in any number will avail in driving her from them. I have seen mother
bears stand at the roots of trees up which their cubs had climbed,
cracking their teeth and striking their paws, which sounded like the
knocking of two hammers together, as warning to their enemies they would
fight till they dropped dead, or killed their antagonist.
They all fast during the entire period of hibernation. Bears bring forth
their young but once in two years, and nature has wisely designed it so.
In order to protect the cubs from the male bear, and other enemies, the
mother's constant presence and care are necessary until they are old and
large enough to protect themselves. On this account she keeps them with
her until they are over a year old, and they generally hibernate the
first year with her, after which they leave her, to roam where they
will.
[Illustration: ALEXANDER MAJORS' FIRST BEAR HUNT.]
As my knowledge of the bear was obtained by being brought up and living
in the portion of the State of Missouri they inhabited, it was natural
when I grew up that I became a bear-hunter. I have killed them at all
times of the year; when in their caves, shortly after they have come out
in the spring, and while in their beds, before going to their caves. I
have traced them by their tracks in the snow from their temporary beds
to their winter caves. On account of my own experience, and my
association with the best and oldest bear-hunters, I have had good
opportunities to learn the nature and habits of black bear. Although I
have seen a great many bears of the Rocky Mountains, and have had some
little experience with the cinnamon, the brown, and the silver-gray
bear, I am not as familiar with their modes of life as I am with those
of the black bear that were found in such numbers in the Mississippi
Valley when the white people first emigrated to that country. Bears of
the Rocky Mountains, and especially grizzly bears, are very much larger
than black bears, and, as far as I have been able to learn from those
who have hunted them, their meat, as food, does not compare with that of
the black bear.
One of my personal experiences in bear hunting occurred about the 15th
of December, 1839, in Taney County, Missouri, where I then lived. After
a deep snow had fallen, I had provided myself with some bread, a piece
of fat bear meat, and a little salt, and some corn for my horse, and
unaccompanied, except by my horse and four dogs, I started out to try
and kill a bear. On reaching that part of the mountains where I expected
to find them, I came across a number of trails, and soon found one which
I knew must have been by a very fat bear. Hunters know by the trail
whether the bear is fat, for if fat he makes two rows of tracks about a
foot apart, while a lean bear makes only one row of tracks, similar to
that of a dog. I spent part of one day in tracking this animal, which I
was sure would be well worth my pains. While on this trail I was led to
the deserted bed of one of the largest bears I ever saw, for I afterward
had ample opportunity of judging of its size and weight. He had lain in
his temporary bed during the falling of the snow, after which he had
gone in a bee-line to the cave for his intended hibernation. Feeling
sure he was such a large animal, I followed the trail four or five
miles, going as straight as if I had followed the bearings of a compass.
On a very high peak at the mouth of one of those caves, of which there
are so many in that country, his trail disappeared. The openings of many
of these caves are so small that it is often with great difficulty a
large bear effects an entrance. However, though the openings are so
small, the caves are broad and spacious. In these caves bears hibernate.
This particular cave had a very small and irregular opening, so that I
could not enter it with my gun; but, as is the custom with bear-hunters,
I cut a pole ten or twelve feet long, sharpened one end, and to this
tied a piece of fat bear meat, set fire to it, and made another attempt
to enter the cave. Finding I could not do this, on account of the
opening being so irregular, I abandoned the idea of shooting him in his
cave, and proceeded to kindle a fire at the mouth, and putting a pole
across the opening, hung my saddle-blanket and a green buckskin that I
procured the day before, when getting meat for my dogs, upon it. This
covering drove the smoke from the fire into the cave, which soon
disturbed the animal, so that he came and put the fire out by striking
it with his paws. Instead of coming out of the cave as I supposed he
would, after putting out the fire, he went back to his bed. He had
gotten such draughts of the suffocating smoke that he made no other
attempts to get to the mouth of the cave, where my four dogs were
standing, ready, nervous, and trembling, watching for him, and I was
standing on one side of the mouth of the cave, prepared to put a whole
charge into him if he made his appearance. I waited a few moments after
I heard him box the fire for him to return, but as he did not, I took
the covering from the mouth of the cave and found the fire was entirely
out. I then rekindled it and replaced the coverings, and it was not long
after until I heard him groaning, like some strong-chested old man in
pain. I listened eagerly for his moanings to cease, knowing that he must
die of suffocation. It was not, however, very long until all was still.
I then uncovered the mouth of the cave to let the smoke out. It was some
time before I could venture in; before I did so I relit my light, and
going in I found my victim not twenty feet from the mouth of the cave,
lying on his back, dead; and, as before stated, he was the largest
animal of the kind I ever saw or killed. It took me seven or eight hours
to slaughter him and carry the meat out of the cave, as I could not
carry more than fifty pounds at a time and crawl out and in.
When I opened the chest of this big bear, I found two bullets. These
were entirely disconnected with any solid matter. They had been shot
into him by some hunter who knew precisely the location of a bear's
heart, which is different from what it is in other animals. His heart
lies much farther back in his body, being precisely in the center of the
same, while the heart of all other quadrupeds, and I think I have known
all those of North America, lies just back of their shoulders; in other
words, in the front part of the chest.
These bullets, from the necessity of the case, must have been shot into
the animal when he was the very fattest, and when he was ready for
hibernation, because they were not lodged in the flesh, but entirely
loose in the chest, each one covered with a white film, and tied with a
little ligament, about the size of a rye straw, to the sack that
contained the heart. When the bear lay down, these bullets could not
have been more than half or three-quarters of an inch from each other,
for each one was covered separately, and had a separate ligament
attaching it to the sack above alluded to; and the two ligaments, where
they had grown to the sack, were not more than a quarter of an inch
apart. I cut out the piece containing both the bullets, and taking it in
my fingers reminded me of two large cherries with the stems almost
touching at the point where they were broken from the limb. What I have
just described would indeed have been an interesting study to the
medical fraternity, as perhaps there has never been anything like it. It
could not have occurred in this particular way, except where the bear
had gone through the preparation peculiar to him before hibernating, and
after leaving his temporary bed he could lie dormant and give nature
ample opportunity to restore the injury to the system which the bullet
had caused. The above facts proved that it was just at the season of the
year when the bear was ready to hibernate.
In this article at the outset, I mentioned the fact that the bear is a
peculiar animal. Indeed he is the most peculiar of any quadruped with
which I am familiar. He has many marked characteristics. He assumes in
twelve months three different modes of life, each one thoroughly
distinct from the other. He hibernates, during which time he abstains
entirely from food and water. On coming out of this dormant condition he
commences to eat food of every kind, peculiar to that season of the
year. After living for months on anything and everything he can get, he
ceases to eat any of these various things, and begins a totally
different kind of diet, eating only mast--acorns and nuts of every kind.
Another of their peculiarities is the cubs are not permitted to see the
light for sixty days after being born, as they are in the dark solitude
of a cave in the ground. Still another characteristic is the mother bear
takes care of her young until they are fourteen months old, they
hibernating with her the second winter of their lives.
The bear differs from other quadrupeds in being able to stand or walk on
his two hind feet as well as on all-fours, and in this position he can
make telling efforts at protecting himself. He climbs trees, and thus
gets the mast by breaking the branches and picking off the acorns. He is
also so constituted that he can fall great distances, even from the top
of a tree, without injuring himself in the least. The mother bear has,
as far as I know, generally two, never more than three, cubs at a time;
when young these cubs can be easily tamed, and become in time very
devoted to their owner. They are very intelligent, so that with proper
training they will learn the tricks any animal has been known to learn.
When small they are great playmates for boys, and will wrestle with them
and enter into sports with great intelligence. They are never dangerous
until grown, and not then unless crossed or abused. Wild bears are not
considered dangerous unless they are attacked and are unable to make
their escape. Under no circumstances, as already stated, does the mother
bear forsake her young when they are in danger. In teaching bears
tricks, one lesson is sufficient, as they seem never to forget. A
friend of mine owned a pet bear which became so familiar about the
place and so attached to all, that he could be turned loose with a chain
several feet long dragging after him. He conceived the idea of
scratching a hole beside the wall, where he could go and hide himself to
take his naps. One day his owner wanted to show him to some one while he
was asleep in his hole, and took hold of the chain, which was lying
extended for some distance, and pulled the little bear out. This
gentleman stated to me that this never occurred but once. After this,
whenever the bear went to take his nap, the first thing he did after
getting into the hole was to pull the chain in after him. His owner had
a post set in the yard fifteen or twenty feet high, with a broad board
nailed on the top. The bear would climb this post and lie down on the
board. The first thing he did after lying down was to pull that chain up
and put it in a coil at his side. His owner told me that one lesson
sufficed to teach him anything. I have repeated many of these facts in
order to bring them more clearly and forcibly to the mind of the
reader.