In this paper I propose to give an account of some experience with the
grizzly bear in the summer and fall of 1885. Here let me correct some
impressions prevailing among sportsmen from the East as to the proper
time to hunt this animal. As detailed in the sporting papers, one
sportsman hunting late in the fall finds them at the timber-line, and
having some success and basing his opinion upon statements of his guide,
is satisfied that is the only place to find them, and that you must
stealthily follow the trail through dense timber, as he did. Another
sportsman finds them below the foot-hills among the Bad Lands, and
thinks that is the proper locality; and so each one is governed by his
own particular good luck and experience. This reminds me of the heated
controversy that agitated some of the readers of one of the sporting
papers a few years since as to the color of the jack-rabbit of the
plains: one party contending they were gray and the opposing party that
they were white, each party citing his own restricted experience with
that fleet-footed animal. To those having more extended observation it
was plain that each side was to a certain extent right as well as wrong,
for it is well known that the jack-rabbit is gray during summer and fall
and turns white in the winter, and then again sheds his white coat in
spring: at least this is the case in Wyoming and Montana.
So with the grizzly. He is essentially an omnivorous animal: his food
varying with each season and the locality where such food is obtained,
his habitat varies accordingly. He lies in his winter bed until routed
out by the melting of the winter snow, and the ground being still
frozen, he has to rustle for his grub. He soon becomes poor from the
necessity of much traveling around for old carcasses and whatever food
comes handy. He is then usually in the foot-hills. In the summer his
food is more vegetable--grass, roots, plants, etc. His haunt is then on
the highest mountain plateaus, where he does a great deal of rooting in
a certain kind of loose rock and loam. In the last of summer, berries
are ripe, and he is then found below the foot-hills, and in the Bad
Lands, or wherever chokeberries, plums, bulberries, etc., are found. In
the fall he craves animal food, and is then found high up in the
foot-hills, or again on the mountain plateaus, wherever game is most
abundant; and in November and December he seeks his winter quarters.
These remarks do not apply to grizzly bears that are found in the Bad
Lands bordering the Missouri or the Lower Yellowstone, as they live
there the entire year, "holing up" in winter in the bluffs of those
desolate-looking regions.
The intellect and intelligence of the grizzly bear are not fully
appreciated. Strip him of his hide, stand him erect on his hind feet,
stick a plug hat on his upper end, and he resembles in anatomy and
general appearance that "noblest work of God"--man: a little too
long-bodied, neck a little short, but otherwise, looking at the muscles
of his thighs and forearm, a veritable athlete. Re-clothe him in his
fur, place him on his all fours, watch him rooting around for grubs and
worms and carrion, and wallowing in mud and filth, and he resembles in
apparent stupidity and habits the lowest type of animal--the hog. Yet
those well acquainted with his characteristics will, I think, agree with
me that in intelligence and perhaps even in intellect he is not many
grades in the process of evolution below man.
[Illustration: Prospecting for Grub.