Cave bear

“ The mammoth was, of course, an impossibility, even to the sea-serpent. The elk, with its size and vast antlers, was, to put it at the mildest, a perplexing thing to swallow. The rhinoceros was dangerous, and as for the cave bear and the cave tiger, they were uncomfortable customers for anything alive. But there were the cattle, the aurochs and the urus, and the little horses and deer, and wild hog and a score of other creatures which, in the estimation of the sea-serpent, were extremely edible. A tidbit to the serpent was a man, but he did not get one in half a century. ”

“ The prehistoric fauna is distinguished from that of the pleistocene not merely by the appearance of the animals above mentioned, which were hitherto unknown, but by the absence of many species which were living during the latter period. The cave bear, woolly rhinoceros, and mammoth, for example, became extinct, the musk-sheep and lemming were banished from a temperate latitude to take refuge in the regions of the north, while the spotted hyæna, the hippopotamus, and Felis caffer, retired to the warm regions of Africa, where they are still living. ”

“ To get a bear out of a cave is often no easy matter, and different caves require, of course, different treatment. In some cases the bear may be poked out with the aid of a long pole, and when this is done the operation is both interesting and amusing, but care must be taken to see that you have a man who understands bears, and knows by the character of the growl when the bear really means to charge out into the open, and also that the man with the stick can readily get out of the way, which he cannot do in the case of every cave. ”

“ Currents of water rushing through the entrance to the grotto carry along the bones—entire, broken, or gnawed—that lie upon the ground. These remains are transported to the depths of the cave, and are often stopped along the walls, and lie buried in the chambers in argillaceous mud. Rounded flint stones are constantly associated with the bones, and the latter are always in great disorder. The species that I met with were as follows: the great cave bear, the little bear, the hyena, the great cat, the rhinoceros, the ox, the horse, and the stag. ”

“ The whole of the animals which belong to a cold climate are wanting in the lake-dwellings; we find neither the reindeer nor the mammoth, the rhinoceros, the lion, nor even the lynx, the cave-bear, the brown bear, the glutton, the Arctic fox, the marmot, the hare, nor the ptarmigan. ”

“ 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. ”

“ It resembled a huge wolf, save as to its massiveness and club countenance, It was one of the monster hyenas of the time, a beast which must have been as dangerous to the men then living as any animal except the cave tiger and the cave bear. ”

“ No cave should be approached with the assumption that it is not at all likely that a bear will be at home, and especial care should be taken in the case of a cave with a drop in front of it over which a person might be hurled by a bear charging suddenly out. ”

“ In limestone caverns in Devon, Derbyshire, and Yorkshire, implements made by man are found in company with remains of the cave bear, cave hyæna, lion, hippopotamus, rhinoceros, and other animals either extinct or no longer inhabitants of this country—remains which have been preserved under floors of stalagmite deposited in the caves. In caves of central France men have left carvings on bone and ivory, representing the wild animals of that day—carvings which show a remarkable artistic sense, and a keen observation of animal life. ”

“ Inside the cave in the upper cave earth were found the bones of fox, badger, brown bear, grizzly bear, reindeer, red deer, horse, pig, and goat, and some bones evidently hacked by man. In the lower cave earth there were the remains of the hyena, fox, brown and grizzly bears, elephant, rhinoceros, hippopotamus, urus, bison, and red deer, the hacked bones of a goat, and a small leg-bone of a man. ”

“ They say that once huge things came out of the great waters and up the creeks, such as even the big cave tiger dare not face. And the old men say that their grandfathers once saw with their own eyes a monster serpent many times as large as the one you two saw, which came swimming up the creek and seized upon the river horses there and devoured them as easily as the cave bear would a little deer. ”

“ The wild hog grew strong and wary from the struggles of the hard and meagre days. The green snakes hidden away, waited continually for the small forest folk to run into their coils. The lank black bear grew bold and desperate with the hunger passion and the Cave People acquired a new skill in hunting.
Beside the strength of their forest enemies, they were weak indeed. But armed with their long, sharp bone weapons, and a wonderful cunning, they fought in all their numbers and were able to triumph over the animals of the forest. ”

“ They lie large with small, the more with the less dense, and are not in the least degree sorted by water. There is no evidence of the hyæna succeeding to the cave-bear, or the reindeer to the urus, or that the bears came here to die, as in some of the German caves, or that the herbivores fell, or were swept into open fissures, and left their remains, as in the caves of Hutton and Plymouth. On the contrary, the numerous jaws and teeth of hyæna, and the marks of those teeth upon nearly every one of the specimens, show that they alone introduced the remains that were found in such abundance. ”

“ When about to take this long nap, the bear seeks for himself a cave or den, in which he makes his bed with such soft substances as may be most convenient—dry leaves, grass, moss, or rushes. He collects no great store of these however—his thick matted fur serving him alike for bed and coverlet; and very often he makes no further ado about the matter than to creep into the hole he has chosen, lie down, snugly couch his head among the thickets of long hair that cover his hams, and thus go to sleep. ”

“ The Ursus arvernensis, Cervus Polignacus, Hippopotamus major, Rhinoceros etruscus, and R. megarhinus, the horse,419 Elephas meridionalis, and E. antiquus were living in the pleiocene age in France and Italy, and probably in Norfolk. The cave-bear, the wolf, fox, mole, beaver, Irish elk, roe, stag, urus, wild-boar, and the mammoth have not as yet been discovered in the continental pleiocenes, as judged by the standards offered by the Val d’Arno and Southern France. They are more or less abundant in the late pleistocene age. ”

“ The most important Mammals which are found in cave-deposits in Europe generally, are the Cave-bear, the Cave-lion, the Cave-hyæna, the Reindeer, the Musk-ox, the Glutton, and the Lemming—of which the first three are probably identical with existing forms, and the remainder are certainly so—together with the Mammoth and the Woolly Rhinoceros, which are undoubtedly extinct. ”

“ The presence of bears is shown by numerous bones, and that of man by his implements.
We must notice that all the implements found in the breccia are similar to those of the Drift, being rudely formed and massive. No doubt these are the remains of Drift men, who, for some cause or other, temporarily visited the cave, perhaps contending with the cave bear for its possession. But a time at length arrived when for some reason neither animals nor man visited the cave. The slow accumulation of stalagmite went forward until in some places it had obtained a thickness of twelve feet. ”

“ But what is nearly always apparent is a sense of truthful realisation, and the exact copying of characteristics which enable us often to recognise not only the order, but the precise species, which the artist wished to represent. The bear, engraved on a piece of schist which was found by M. Garrigou in the lower cave at Massat, with the characteristic projecting forehead, can be no other than the cave-bear, the bones of which were recovered by that observer in the same place. ”

“ In some cases of peculiarly shaped and situated caves it is, however, the only practicable plan, but where adopted the bear should not be put to more inconvenience than is necessary to drive him out. A large fire should be lit at the entrance, and when the cave has got filled with smoke all the blazing fragments of wood should be removed from the entrance, and in doing this the people should talk loudly and make as much noise as possible, and afterwards retreat to a distance from the cave leaving the sportsman with his spare gun-carrier to sit just above the entrance to the cave. ”

“ The brown bear of Siberia, however, is sometimes attacked whilst hibernating, and this is a very dangerous thing to do, for this species—unlike the black bear of America—sleeps lightly, and is very fierce when disturbed. The way employed is for one man to descend into the bear’s cave, at the end of a rope, the other end being held by two or three men, who stand at the cave’s mouth. The man who goes in has a torch, or a candle, fixed into his cap—at least I think I have somewhere read this account—so that he can both see before him, and carry his gun in both hands. ”

“ Bear shooting from caves I have found to be a most interesting and sometimes most entertaining and even amusing sport, while it is attended with a sufficient amount of danger for all practical purposes. You never get a laugh out of a tiger shikar, but you sometimes do in connection with bears, and the following is at once an instance in point, and will besides illustrate the danger of approaching a cave which is perhaps rarely inhabited by bears, as also the surprising promptness of the bear in action. ”

“ The Cave-bear exceeded in its dimensions the largest of modern Bears;
Fig. 268.—Skull of Ursus spelpeus. Post-Pliocene, Europe. One-sixth of the natural size. and its remains, as its name implies; have been found mainly in cavern-deposits. Enormous numbers of this large and ferocious species must have lived in Europe in Post-Glacial times; and that they survived into the human period, is clearly shown by the common association of their bones with the implements of man. ”

“ There was no necessity for going after the bear until a very late hour—that is, until near morning—for then the beast would be most likely to be abroad. If they went too soon, and found him still in his cave, it was not so certain that even the dogs could prevail on him to turn out. It might be a large cavern. He might give battle to the dogs inside; and big as they were, they would be worsted in an encounter of that sort: since a single blow from the paw of a bear is sufficient to silence the noisiest individual of the canine kind. ”

“ A savage Boar in his stronghold is as difficult to oust as the Grizzly Bear from his winter cave in the Rocky Mountains. He constantly rushes out, knocks over and gores the beaters nearest the mouth of his retreat, and then skips back again before there is the shadow of a chance of spearing him. ”

“ Now, around that shelter in the rocks are growing the trees out of which bows are made, and there also grow the bushes from which arrows are cut; they are so plentiful that they could supply the whole town, and furnish all the hunters here with bows and arrows; but they cannot get them, because in the cave lives a great Bear, a very savage being, and no one dares go near there to get timber for the bows or sticks for the arrows, [Pg 67] because the Bear would surely devour whoever ventured there. He has devoured many of our people ”

“ A fight is good for him. He will learn to make his way."
CHAPTER IV HOW STRONGARM HUNTED A BEAR AND A LION
In those days Strongarm was busily digging a big hole away out in the forest. He cut the dirt up with his stone ax, and threw it out with a clam shell. He had worked now for days, and at last the hole was large enough. He laid branches over it, and over the branches he hung the leg of a wild goat.
That night the wild things of the woods came out to hunt for food. A cave bear came by and smelled the meat. He went to get it and fell through the branches into the hole beneath. ”

“ A cave in the rocks is also their favourite lair, when the geological structure of the country offers them so secure a retreat. They are safer thus; for when a bear-tree or log has been discovered by either hunter or farmer the bear has not much chance of escape. The squirrel is safe enough, as his capture will not repay the trouble of felling the tree; but such noble game as a bear will repay whole hours of hard work with the axe. ”

“ The grizzly bears have their caves, to which they retire when the cold of winter renders them torpid; and this condition is taken advantage of by the most intrepid of the hunters. Having satisfied themselves about the cave, these men prepare a candle from wax taken from the comb of wild bees, and softened by the grease of the bear. It has a large wick, and burns with a brilliant flame. Carrying this before him, with his rifle in a convenient position, the hunter enters the cave. ”

“ We ate our rabbit meat as quickly as possible, drank from the spring, and by the help of the indispensable "anvil" and our cutting-stones, we got us each a heavy, green birch club. Then we hurried off to the river. Although much snow had fallen since we had seen the black bear's tracks there, its trail was still traceable up through the timber toward the cave. ”