Bear cub

“ 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. ”

“ She loved the cub with a certain extravagance, and gave herself up to it utterly. Even her beloved master fell into a secondary place, and his household, of which she had hitherto held herself the guardian, now seemed to her to exist merely for the benefit of this black prodigy which she imagined herself to have produced. The little one's astounding growth—for the cubs of the bear are born very small, and so must lose no time in making up arrears of stature—was an affair for which she took all credit to herself ”

“ There is nothing more humorous and clown-like in the forests than a young bear cub. Filled with an endless desire to learn something new, he is forever getting into difficulties. The cub loves to wrestle and box, and a play session with a husky brother or sister is usually somewhat of a rough and tumble affair.
Falltime is the time of year to see bears, because the abundance of huckleberries on the many slopes and ridges above 5,000 feet brings them out in large numbers. ”

“ The bear is an expert climber and handles himself with great skill. When frightened the cub will almost always shinny up the nearest tree before looking to see what caused the alarm. The mother bear will often send her youngsters up a tree when she is afraid they may be in danger or when she wants them to “stay put” for a time. Bear cubs in a tree are a fair warning to stay away because the mother is bound to be somewhere close by. ”

“ Edd had brought the dead cub back to our camp. It was a pretty little bear cub, about six months old, with a soft silky brown coat. No one had to look at it twice to see how it had suffered.
This matter of trapping wild animals is singularly hateful to me. Bad enough is it to stalk deer to shoot them for their meat, but at least this is a game where the deer have all the advantage. Bad indeed it may be to chase bear with hounds, but that is a hard, dangerous method of hunting which gives it some semblance of fairness. Most of my bear hunts proved to me that I ran more risks than the bears. ”

“ And it isn't a freak of nature, Bruce—it's simply a result of Nature's far-sightedness. If the cubs were as large comparatively as a house-cat's kittens the mother-bear could not sustain them during those weeks when she eats and drinks nothing herself. There seems to be just one flaw in this scheme: an ordinary black bear is only about half as large as a grizzly, yet a black bear cub when born is much larger than a grizzly cub. ”

“ A friendly individual, the woman asked them about the Cub Scout organization, its aims and purpose.
Brad politely explained that Den 1 and Den 2 were included in a larger classification known as the Pack. Cub advancement, he pointed out, was based upon the completion of a set of achievements.
[100]
“When a boy finishes Wolf requirements, he is awarded the Wolf Cub rank and badge,” Dan carried on the explanation. “As soon as a Wolf Cub is ten years old, he works to complete the Bear Cub achievements. Upon reaching his eleventh birthday and after being a Bear, he may become a Lion Cub.” ”

“ It takes you to keep the menagerie from growing shy!”
As Alex lifted the object in his arms, however, Case saw that it was a bear cub—certainly not more than a month old—a black bear cub who looked into the faces of the lads with an appeal which was not to be resisted! It softened Case’s heart in an instant. ”

“ Bears, as has been previously stated, do not copulate with the male mounting the back of the female, but with the female lying down under the male. The she-bear goes with young for thirty days. She brings forth sometimes one cub, sometimes two cubs, and at most five. Of all animals the newly born cub of the she bear is the smallest in proportion to the size of the mother; that is to say, it is larger than a mouse but smaller than a weasel. It is also smooth and blind, and its legs and most of its organs are as yet inarticulate. ”

“ That night the little Cub Bear slept very soundly, and was out early next morning, wondering whether any more animals would come. Soon he heard a noise, as if some kind of an animal was coming up the path, but he could not see what it was.
Suddenly he said, "I see the strangest thing; it looks like a bird's head on a long pole. The eyes are as big as large marbles; the long pole-like neck seems to have hair on it. The bill is much bigger than a goose's bill." ”

“ This little bear lost none of his native energy, alertness, and versatility under changed and unexacting condi [Pg 241] tions. The way he handled every situation was a constant surprise and delight.
Pet cubs, if gently treated, quickly accept and make the best of new environment; they become intimate and loving, in fact most intensely so. If handled kindly, the cub is willing to do everything reasonable, everything he understands one wants done. But whip or scold him, and he at once becomes stubborn and unwilling, reserved and cross. ”

“ When they are small, bear-cubs rarely go about alone. The whole family usually keeps together, or, if it separates, it is generally into couples—one cub with each of the parents; or the father goes off alone, leaving both cubs with the mother. A cub toddling off alone in its own woolly, comfortable ignorance would be sure to make all manner of mistakes in what it ate, and it might find itself in very serious trouble in other ways. ”

“ Meanwhile the old she-bear is watching over the family in an odd mixture of fondness and discipline, with temper enough to give variety to both. Sometimes she mothers the cubs with a gruff, bearish kind of tenderness. When they bother her, or when they are heedless of some warning or message, she cuffs them impatiently; and a bear’s cuff is no love pat, but a thud from a heavy paw which sends a cub spinning end over end. ”

“ I believe that the explanation of this very striking difference of habit between the Black and the grizzly bears in the matter of breeding annually or biennially, is to be found in their different degrees of fierceness, and in the resulting fact that the Black Bear cubs are not so long in danger from the evil tempers and bloodthirsty dispositions of the grown males of their kind.
A new-born cub of either species would be instantly killed, and probably eaten, by any old male that got the opportunity ”

“ The old bear's triumph, however, was not always so complete. On one day in particular she was confronted by an experience which almost left her cub without a mother. The cub, watching solicitously from behind a jagged hummock of ice, received a lesson which never faded from his mind. He learned that in the wilds one must never let himself become so absorbed in any occupation as to forget to keep a watchful eye for what may be coming up behind one's back. ”

“ The twins were born one blustery winter day in a den hollowed out beneath the roots of a giant beech. They were woolly black bear cubs, who at birth were blind and no larger than kittens. With nothing to do but to eat and sleep, they grew rapidly. Outside in the forest the gales howled and the snow drifted deep, but the cave was well protected and the great bulk of Mother Bruin kept it warm and of an even temperature. ”

“ The black bear of the Cascades is quite harmless, and its cubs, like kittens, seem to have a sense of humor unusual among animals. For a white child to see a cub is to desire it to tame for a pet, and Mrs. Woods felt the same childish instincts when she caught up the little creature, which seemed to have no fear of anything, and ran away with it toward her home. ”

“ They do not readily talk about their deceased ancestors. Their places of burial are concealed, and foreigners rarely obtain access to them.
In their rude superstitions the bear seems to have a singular part. Whether their traditions concerning this animal had their origin in some earlier fear of the bear as a ferocious neighbor it is impossible to determine. In every community the men capture each spring a young cub which they bring home. They entrust it to a woman who feeds it on the milk from her breast. ”

“ In the temperate zone bears mate in the summer months and the young are born late in January, during hibernation. Bear-cubs are very small babies for such large parents, weighing much less in proportion to their dams than most other mammals. They are blind, helpless and almost hairless.
As the old bear is very fat when they are born and they do nothing but sleep in the dark den, they grow rapidly, so that when they are finally brought forth at the age of perhaps four months, they have developed wonderfully and would hardly be recognized as the tiny blind cubs of a few weeks before. ”

“ She made a neat job of it while the cubs wrestled in the sunshine nearby.
Bear cubs are about the most merry hearted youngsters I know of. I think they are even more playful than monkeys and far more charming to look at.
An Alaskan Indian guide presented me with two little black bear cubs he had captured while hunting. They were about three months old and as fat as butter balls. They were as grey as mice but as they grew older these grey coats grew darker and darker until they were jet black like their parents. The little fellows were contented and grew very rapidly. ”

“ An effort was made to keep the cub as a kind [240] of pet. After a while she escaped and was caught swimming across a narrow lane of water. To keep her secure they fastened her to an ice-anchor, where she was at first very much frightened, but later she ate with avidity such meat as was thrown to her. To add to her comfort a snow house was built, with the floor strewed with shavings for her bed, but the record runs: "The young bear, as a genuine inhabitant of the arctic seas, despised the hut and bed, preferring to camp in the snow." ”

“ It was by analogy that the word was used of the young of bears, lions, and whales: and if Shakspeare in one place (Merchant of Venice, Act II. Sc. 1.) says "cubs of the she-bear," he elsewhere (Titus Andronicus, Act IV. Sc. 1.) has "bear-whelps." I further very much doubt if cub was used of boys in our poet's time. The earliest employment of it that I have seen is in Congreve, who uses "unlicked cubs," evidently alluding to young bears: and that is the sense in which cub is still used,—a sense that would not in any case apply to Viola. ”

“ There was a lightning swing of his armed tail which, if it had reached its mark, would have filled the paw with deadly quills. Fortunately, however, the cruel barbs failed to reach their mark, for, an instant before the swing, the small bear received a cuff which sent him sprawling into the bushes, and Mother Bruin stood in the trail confronting the porcupine.
Kagh, like most of the wilderness folk, knows that there is a vast difference between a full-grown bear and a furry, inquisitive cub. ”

“ The little Cub Bear said that he did, and snuggled up as close as he could to his papa, for grizzly bears are as large as four or five grown-up brown bears all put together, and they have great teeth and claws. They like to eat little pigs, and little calves, and such things instead of berries and honey. When the little Cub Bear had snuggled up as close to his papa as he could the Papa Bear commenced. ”

“ Most cubs, and some older bears, would have relinquished the adventure at this point, for, as a rule, it takes a wise old bear to handle a bee tree successfully. But Teddy Bear was no ordinary cub, let me tell you. He lay nursing his anger and his nose till he had made up his mind what to do. And then he set out to do it.
"Hauling himself up softly from branch to branch, he made no more noise than a shadow. As soon as he was right behind the bees' hole he reached around, dug his claws into the edge of it, and pulled with all his might. The edges were rotten, and a pawful of old wood came. ”

“ Bear-cubs are born when the mother is still in her winter den, and they are usually five or six [15] weeks old before they come out into the world at all. Even then at first, when the cubs are very young, the family stays close at home, and for some time I imagine that the longest journey I made was when I tumbled those fifty feet downhill. ”

“ Black Bear cubs, then, are born in the winter den of the mother some time from the latter half of January to the middle of March, according to the latitude and also according to the altitude of the den. The further north a bear happens to live, and the higher up in the hills it happens to live, the later the spring sets in and so the later the animal comes out of its retirement. ”

“ On one occasion, when he was preaching in a house, the little cub was taken into the service and was passed from one woman to another and suckled, in the most matter-of-fact way. Later on, though no longer suckled, the pet bear is most carefully fed; sometimes the woman will give it a soft morsel with her lips. When the animal is too large to be longer kept in the house and petted, it is put out into the cage, constructed of a cob-work of logs and raised a little above the ground on posts. ”