A black bear came into a United States Survey camp one Sunday afternoon while all the men were lounging about, and walked into the cook’s tent. The cook was averse to bears; he tried to go through the rear of the tent at a place where there was no door. The tent went down on him and the bear. The bear, confused and not in the habit of wearing a tent, made a lively show of it—a sea in a storm—as he struggled to get out.

All were gathered round and watched the bear emerge from beneath the tent and climb a tree. Out on the first large limb he walked. He looked down on us somewhat puzzled and inclined to be playful.

This was at the Thumb in the Yellowstone National Park, in the summer of 1891. I was the boy of the party. For some years I had been interested in wild life, and while in the Park I used every opportunity to study tree and animal life. I frequently climbed trees to examine the fruit they bore, to learn about the insects that were preying on them or the birds that were eating the insects. I was naturally nicknamed the Tree Climber. There was now a unanimous call for the Tree Climber to go up and get the bear down!

Of course no one wants to climb a tree when it is full of bears. But at last I was persuaded to climb a tree near the one in which the bear reposed and try to rout him out. He had climbed up rapidly head foremost. He went down easily tail foremost. The instant he touched the earth there was such a yelling and slapping of coats that for a time the bear was confused as to whether he should fight or frolic. He decided to climb again. But in his confusion he took the wrong tree. He climbed up beneath me!

From long experience since that time I now realize that the bear simply wanted to romp, for he was scarcely more than one year of age. The black bear is neither ferocious nor dangerous. The most fitting name I have ever heard given him is The Happy Hooligan of the Woods. He is happy-go-lucky, and taking thought of the morrow is not one of his troubles.

The most surprising pranks I ever saw were those of a pet cub. During one of my rambles in the mountains of Colorado I came to the cabin of an eccentric prospector who always had some kind of a pet. On this occasion it was a black bear cub. The cub was so attached to the place that unchained he stayed or played near by all day while his master was away at work.

With moccasined feet I approached the cabin quietly, and the first knowledge I had of the cub was his spying my approach from behind a tree in the rear of the cabin. He was standing erect, with his body concealed behind the tree; only a small bit of his head and an eye were visible. As I approached him he moved round, keeping the tree between us.

Finally he climbed up several feet; and as I edged round he sidled about like a squirrel, and though always peeking at me, kept his body well concealed on the opposite side of the tree. On my going to the front of the cabin he descended; and when I glanced round the front corner to see him, he was peeking round the rear corner at me.

As I had kept up a lively, pleasant conversation all this time, he evidently concluded that I was friendly, and, like a boy, proceeded to show off. Near by stood a barrel upright, with the top missing. Into this the bear leaped and then deliberately overturned it on the steep slope. Away down hill rolled the barrel at a lively pace with the bear inside. Thrusting out his forepaws he guided the course of the barrel and controlled its speed.

Once while two black bear cubs were fleeing before a forest fire they paused and true to their nature had a merry romp. Even the threatening flames could not make them solemn. Each tried to prevent the other from climbing a tree that stood alone in the open; round it they clinched, cuffed, and rolled so merrily that the near-by wild folk were attracted and momentarily forgot their fears.

The black bear has more human-like traits than any other animal I know. He is a boy in disguise, will not work long at anything unless at something to produce mischief. Occasionally he finds things dull, like a shut-in boy or a boy with a task to perform, and simply does not know what to do with himself—he wants company.

He is shy and bashful as a child. He plans no harm. He does not eat bad children; nor does he desire to do so. Nothing would give him greater delight than to romp with rollicking, irrepressible children whose parents have blackened his character.

In other words, the black bear is just the opposite in character of what he has long been and still is almost universally thought to be. A million written and spoken stories have it that he is ferocious—a wanton, cruel killer. He fights or works only when compelled to do so. He is not ferocious. He avoids man as though he were a pestilence.

One day in climbing out on a cliff I accidentally dislodged a huge rock. This as it fell set a still larger rock going. The second rock in its hurtling plunge struck a tree in which a young black bear was sleeping. As the tree came to the earth the bear made haste to scamper up the nearest tree. But unfortunately the one up which he raced had lost its top by the same flying ton of stone, and he was able to get only a few yards above the earth.

To get him to come down I procured a long pole and prodded him easily. At first, on the defensive, he slapped and knocked the pole to right and left. He was plainly frightened and being cornered was determined to fight. I proceeded gently and presently he calmed down and began playing with the pole. He played just as merrily as ever a kitten played with a moving, tickling twig or string.

The black bear is the most plausible bluffer I have ever seen. His hair bristling, upper lip stuck forward, and onrushing with a rapid volley of champing K-woof-f-f’s, he appears terrible. He pulls himself out of many a predicament and obtains many an unearned morsel in this way. Most of his bluffs are for amusement; he will go far out of his way for the purpose of running one. In any case, if the bluff is ineffective—and most often it is—he moves on with unbelievable indifference at the failure, and in a fraction of a second is so interested in something else, or so successfully pretends to be, that the bluff might have been yesterday judging from his appearance. Often, like a boy, he has a merry or a terrible make-believe time, in which the bluff is exhibited.

Bears are fond of swimming, and during the summer often go for a plunge in a stream or lake. This is followed by a sunning on the earth or an airing in a treetop.

The grizzly does not climb trees, but the black bear climbs almost as readily as a cat. With its cat-like forepaws it can simply race up a tree trunk. He climbs a small pole or a large tree with equal ease.

The black bear might be called a perching animal. Much of his time, both asleep and awake, is spent in treetops. Often he has a special tree, and he may use this tree for months or even years. When closely pursued by dogs, or the near-by appearance of a grizzly, or if anything startling happen, instantly a black bear climbs a tree. The black bear is afraid of the grizzly.

In case of danger or when leaving on a long foraging expedition the mother usually sends her cubs up a tree. They faithfully remain in the tree until she returns. One day in Wild Basin, Colorado, while watching a mother and two cubs feeding on travelling ants, the mother quietly raised her head then pointed her nose at the cubs. Though there was not a sound the cubs instantly, though unwillingly, started toward the foot of a tree. The mother raised her forepaws as though to go toward them. At that the cubs made haste toward the tree. At the bottom they hesitated; then the mother with rush and champing Whoof! simply sent them flying up the trunk. Then she walked away into the woods.

In the treetop the cubs remained for hours, not once descending to the earth. It was a lodgepole pine sixty or seventy feet away and several feet lower than my stand, on the side of a moraine. For some minutes the cubs stood on the branches looking in the direction in which their mother had disappeared. They explored the entire tree, climbing everywhere on the branches, then commenced racing and playing through the treetop.

At times their actions were very cat-like; now and then squirrel-like; frequently they were very monkey-like; but at all times lively, interesting, and bear-like. Occasionally they climbed and started wrestling far out on a limb. Sometimes they fell off, but caught a limb below with their claws, and without a pause, swung up again or else dropped to another limb. Once they scrambled down the trunk within a few feet of the bottom; and as they raced up again the lower one snapped at the hind legs of the upper one and finally, attaching himself to the other with a forepaw, pulled him loose from the tree trunk. The upper one thus exchanged places with the lower one and the lively scramble up the trunk continued.

After a while one curled up in a place where three or four limbs intersected the tree trunk and went to sleep. The other went to sleep on his back on a flattened limb near the top of the tree.

Realizing that the cubs would stay in the tree, no matter what happened, I concluded to capture them. Though they had been having lively exercise for two hours they were anything but exhausted. Climbing into the tree I chased them round from the bottom to the top; from the top out on limbs, and from limbs to the bottom—but was unable to get within reach of them.

Several times I drove one out on top of a limb and then endeavoured to shake him off and give him a tumble to the earth. A number of times I braced myself on a near-by large limb and shook with all my might. Often I was able to move the end of the limb rapidly back and forth, but the cubs easily clung on. At times they had hold with only one paw—occasionally with only a single claw; but never could I shake them free.

The affair ended by my cutting a limb—to which a cub was clinging—nearly off with my hatchet. Suddenly breaking the remaining hold of the limb I tossed it and the tenacious little cub out, tumbling toward the earth. The cub struck the earth lightly, and before I had fully recovered from nearly tumbling after him came scrambling up the tree trunk beneath me!

One spring day while travelling in the mountains I paused in a whirl of mist and wet snow to look for the trail. I could see only a few feet ahead. As I looked closely a bear emerged from the gloom heading straight for me. Behind her were two cubs. I caught an impatient expression when she first saw me. She stopped, and with a growl of anger wheeled and boxed the cubs right and left like a worried, unpoised mother. They vanished in the direction from which they had come, the cubs being urged on with lively spanks.

Like most animals, the black bear has a local habitation. His territory is twenty miles or less in circumference. In this territory he is likely to spend his years, but in springtime he may descend to feed on the earliest wild gardens of the foothills. I have tracked black bears across mountain passes, and on one occasion I found a bear track on the summit of Long’s Peak.

The black bear eats everything that is edible, although his food is mainly that of a vegetarian. He digs out rich willow and aspen roots in the shallow and soft places, and tears up numerous plants for their roots or tubers. He eats grass and devours hundreds of juicy weeds. In summer he goes miles to berry patches and with the berries browses off a few inches of thorny bush; he bites off the end of a plum-tree limb and consumes it along with its leaves and fruit.

During summer I have seen him on the edge of snowfields and glaciers consuming thousands of unfortunate grasshoppers, flies, and other insects there accumulated. He is particularly fond of ants—tears ant hills to pieces and licks up the ants as they come storming forth to bite him. He tears hundreds of rotten logs and stumps to pieces for grubs, ants and their eggs. He freely eats honey, the bees and their nests. He often amuses himself and makes a most amusing and man-like spectacle by chasing and catching grasshoppers.

In a fish country he searches for fish and occasionally catches live ones; but he is too restless or shiftless to be a good fisherman. I have seen him catch fish by thrusting his nose in root entanglements in the edge of a brook; sometimes he captures salmon or trout that are struggling through shallow ripples.

Occasionally he catches a rabbit or a bird. But most of his meat is stale, with the killing of which he had nothing to do. He will devour carrion that has the accumulated smell of weeks of corruption. He catches more mice than a cat; and in the realm of economic biology he should be rated as useful. He consumes many other pests.

The black bear is—or was—pretty well distributed over North America. His colour and activities vary somewhat with the locality, this being due perhaps to a difference of climate and food supply.

Everywhere, however, he is very much the same. Wherever found he has the hibernating habit. This is most developed in the colder localities. Commonly he is fat at the close of autumn; and as a preliminary to his long winter rest he makes a temporary nest where for a few days he fasts and sleeps.

With his stomach completely empty he retires into hibernating quarters for the winter. This place may be dug beneath the base of a fallen tree, close to the upturned roots, or a rude cave between immense rocks, or a den beneath a brush heap. Sometimes he sleeps on the bare earth or on the rocks of a cave; but he commonly claws into his den a quantity of litter or trash, then crawls into this and goes to sleep. The time of his retiring for the winter varies with the latitude; but usually all bears of the same locality retire at about the same date, early December being the most common time.

The grizzly bear is more particular in his choice of sleeping quarters and desires better protection and concealment than the black bear. Bears sometimes come forth in fair weather for a few hours and possibly for a few days. I have known them to come out briefly in mid-winter.

With the coming of spring—anywhere between the first of March and the middle of May—the bears emerge, the males commonly two weeks or more earlier than the females. Usually they at once journey down the mountain. They eat little or nothing for the first few days. They are likely to break their fast with the tender shoots of willow, grass, and sprouting roots, or a bite of bark from a pine.

The cubs are born about mid-winter. Commonly there are three at a birth, but the number varies from one to four. At the time of birth these tiny, helpless little bears rarely weigh more than half a pound. I suppose if they were larger their mother would not be able to nourish them, on account of having to endure the hibernating fast for a month or so after their birth.

In May, when the cubs and their mother emerge from the dark den, the cubs are most cunning, and lively little balls of fur they are! By this time they are about the weight and size of a cottontail rabbit. In colour they may be black, cinnamon, or cream.

As with the grizzly, the colour has nothing to do with the species. With black bears, however, if the fur is black his claws are also black; or if brown the claws match the colour of the fur. With the grizzly the colour of claws and fur often do not match.

Few more interesting exhibitions of play are to be seen than that of cubs with their mother. Often, for an hour at a time, the mother lies in a lazy attitude and allows the cubs to romp all over her and maul her to their hearts’ content.

The mother will defend her cubs with cunning, strength, and utmost bravery. Nothing is more pathetic in the wild world than the attachment shown by the actions of the whimpering cubs over the body of their dead mother. They will struggle with utmost desperation to prevent being torn away from it.

In the majority of cases the mother appears to wean the cubs during the first autumn of their lives. The cubs then den up together that winter. In a number of cases, whenever the cubs are not weaned until the second autumn, they are certain to den up with their mother the first winter. The second winter the young den up together. Though eager for play, brother and sister cubs do not play together after the second summer. When older than two years they play alone or with other bears of the same age.

Young black bears have good tempers and are playful in captivity. But if teased or annoyed they become troublesome and even dangerous with age. If thine enemy offend thee present him with a black bear cub that has been mistreated. He is an intense, high-strung animal, and if subjected to annoyances, teasing, or occasional cruelty, becomes revengeful and vindictive. Sometimes he will even look for trouble, and once in a fight has the tenacity of a bulldog.

Two bears that I raised were exceedingly good-tempered and never looked for trouble. I have known other similar instances. I am inclined to conclude that with uniformly kind treatment the black bear would always have a kind disposition.

For a year or two a dissipated cruiser and his loyal black bear were familiar figures in the West. The pranks of the bear easily brought drinks enough to enable the cruiser to be drunk most of the time. Many times, when going to my room in the early morning after work on a night shift, I found the cruiser asleep in the street entrance to my lodging house. The faithful bear—Tar Baby—sat by the cruiser’s side, patiently waiting for his awakening.

The black bear has a well-developed brain and may be classed among the alert animals of the wild. Its senses are amazingly developed; they seem to be ever on duty. When a possible enemy is yet a mile or so distant they receive by scent or by sound a threatening and wireless message on the moving or through the stationary air. Therefore it is almost impossible to approach closely a wild bear.

With the black bear, as with every living thing, every move calls for safety first; and this exceedingly alert animal is among the very first to appreciate a friendly locality.

The black bear has never been protected as a game animal; through all the seasons of the year, with gun and dogs, the hunter is allowed to pursue him. As he is verging on extinction, and as he gives to the wilds much of its spirit, there ought to be a closed season for a few years to protect this rollicking fellow of the forest.