Mother bear

“ The mother always leads, like a bear, and the little ones follow in single file, noting everything that the mother calls attention to. They sit on their haunches and walk flat-footed, like a bear, leaving a track from their hind feet like that of a dwarf baby. Everything eatable in the woods ministers to their hunger, as it does to that of the greedy prowler in the black coat. Now they stir up an ant's nest; now they grub into a rotten log for worms and beetles. If they can find sweet sap, or a bit of molasses in an old camp, they dip their paws in it and then lick them clean, as Mooween does. ”

“ She wheeled swiftly, ran to where the cub stood waiting and whimpering, nosed him solicitously, and led him away through the blue and sparkling hummocks.
After this misadventure the mother bear did no more hunting for a week or two, but kept inland among the sunny valleys, and nursed her [Pg 14] wounds, and fed on the young roots and tender herbage which sprouted hurriedly wherever the snow left bare a patch of earth. On such clean and blood-cooling diet her hurts speedily healed. Then with renewed vigour and a whetted craving for red flesh-food, she went back to her keen hunting of the seals. ”

“ 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. ”

“ When the spring sun begins to melt the snow outside, the bear becomes a mother, and a brace of little white cubs make their appearance, each about as big as a rabbit.
The mother does not immediately lead them forth from their snowy chamber; but continues to suckle them there until they are of the size of Arctic foxes, and ready to take the road. Then she makes an effort, breaks through the icy crust that forms the dome of her dwelling, and commences her journey towards the sea. ”

“ I have seen a mother bear, galled by frequent shots, obstinately meet her death by repeatedly returning under fire whilst endeavouring to rescue her young from the grasp of intruding men. But here, for a simple loin-cloth or two, human mothers eagerly exchanged their little offspring, delivering them into perpetual bondage to my Beluch soldiers."—Speke, pp. ”

“ Mother Bear.
The love of a mother is wonderful beyond all things. There is nothing to compare with it. There is nothing it will not attempt to do. There is no danger it will not face. There is no sacrifice it will not make. It is the most beautiful, the most perfect of all things.
Boxer and Woof-Woof had thought that in climbing a tall tree they were making themselves safe. It had not entered their funny little [99] heads that great big Buster Bear would climb that tree. So you can imagine how terribly frightened they were when Buster started up that tree after them. ”

“ How wonderfully does Instinct teach this rough, strange-looking creature to provide for her cubs! The mother bear scrapes and burrows under the snow, till she has formed a small but snug home, where she dwells with her baby-bears during the sharpest cold of an Arctic winter. So wonderfully has Providence cared for the comfort even of wild beasts, that the mother needs no food for three months! She is so fat when she settles down in her under-snow home, that her own plumpness serves her instead of breakfast, dinner, and supper ”

“ The first thing that the wild baby learns, both by precept and example, is safety first! When the squalling and toddling bear cub first goes abroad, the mother bear is worried and nervous for fear that in a sudden and dangerous emergency the half-helpless little one will not be able to make a successful get-away when the alarm- signal snort is given. During the first, and most dangerous, days in the life of the elk, deer and antelope fawn, the first care of the mother is to hide her offspring in a spot cunningly chosen beside a rock, beside a log, or in thick bushes. ”

“ Some hunters came one day to raid the den and kill the foster-mother, and found, amazed, a fearless, white-skinned thing with rosy cheeks and brave eyes, who fought for her life and bit them as did her fierce foster-brothers, and then cried human tears of rage and sorrow when she saw the bear who had been her mother lying bloody and dead. ”

“ Once having got over their long winter sleep, bears begin to be sociable again, and take an interest in their fellow-creatures.
The mother-bears were particularly busy, for they had to teach and educate their little ones, and there is no quainter sight on the earth than a heavy, lumbering, brown mother-bear followed by her funny little woolly cubs.
Brunie commenced to take her children now for daily walks, showed them the most likely places to find dainty bits of food, taught them to climb and dig, and, as they grew older, to swim ”

“ But Mother Bear taught Footsteps Upon the Water and the little cubs to run always when they saw a man with a bow and arrows. One day, a man came very close to the Bear’s house, but Mother Bear chased him with a forked stick, and he went away. ”

“ She knew that now the big bear hunters were coming. No rabbits or partridges could lead these hunters from the bear trail, for they had dogs with four eyes. (Foxhounds have a yellow spot over each eye which makes them seem double-eyed.) These dogs were never known to miss a bear tree. Sooner or later they would scent it.
Mother Bear thought she might be able to save herself and her cubs. But what would become of the boy? She loved him too well to let the bear hunters kill him. [Pg 53]
Just then the porcupine, the Chief of the animals, passed by the bear tree. ”

“ The mother bear will die fighting for her cubs. The hunters say they dislike to kill her, because of her mother love, that never yields up those two little cubs that she places behind her, and then fights until she dies. ”

“ 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. ”

“ They keep the cubs hidden there for weeks and months after they are born, for bear babies are as blind as kittens, as naked as little birds, and perfectly helpless at first. They are fed with milk at their mother's breast, so she stays with the cubs while papa bear goes foraging for food for her. Mama Bear is as cross—as a bear. You know that's as cross as any one can be. She will try to kill anyone who comes near her babies.
All wild animals are fond of their mates and babies, and will fight for them. But there are few that are as brave and loving as the polar bears. ”

“ As the cubs grow larger and stronger the mother wanders farther afield with them, and, from sacrificing all her time and desires to their needs and safety, comes gradually first to tolerate, and toward the end of the season rather to resent, their persistent demands upon her. One imagines that it is with a final indifference and relief that she sends them off to shift for themselves. For, like other animals, a bear, while showing the most devoted and courageous love for her children while they are helpless, has a very short-lived affection for them once they cease to need her protection. ”

“ 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. ”

“ But the mated females always have snow huts in which they give birth to their young, and where they reside until early spring; then the mother bear comes forth with them to seek food and teach them the ways of the world. ”

“ It is true of rats, as most boys who have bred white rats have had occasion to discover. The memory of the habit, at least, survives in the fierceness with which even a pet dog with puppies will keep the father of them away from her basket. In all zoological gardens it is necessary to separate the male bears from the female at and after the birth of cubs, and the habits of mother bears in the woods show that their instincts warn them very effectually of the wisdom of this course. ”

“ The female bear is a most affectionate mother, and many stories are related showing her care and love for her young, and her sorrow and mournful cries when any evil befalls them. On one occasion a black bear with her two cubs was pursued across the ice by some armed sailors. At first she urged her cubs to increased speed, but finding her pursuers gaining upon them, she carried, pushed, and pitched them, alternately, forward, until she effected their escape from her pursuers. ”

“ In this higher order of animals nothing can exceed the devotion of the mother to her young in their helpless infancy. The fierce bear will recklessly expose her shaggy breast to the hunter in their defence. ”

“ 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 [214] 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. ”

“ A wee little native bear, barely eight inches long,—a little grey beast, comical beyond expression, with broad flapped ears, sits on a tree within reach. He makes no resistance, but cuddles into the child's bosom, and eats a leaf as they go along; while his mother sits aloft, and grunts indignant at the abstraction of her offspring, but, on the whole, takes it pretty comfortably, and goes on with her dinner of peppermint leaves. ”

“ II. THE BEAR.
"HE is just like a bear!" That is a very common expression when we talk of some ill-tempered man or boy, who takes a pleasure in saying rude things, and who seems bent upon making every one near him as uncomfortable as he can.
But we may be unjust even to bears. Could you have gone to wintry Greenland, and seen Mrs. Bruin amidst her family of little white cubs, each scarcely bigger than a rabbit, you would have agreed that a bear can be a kind and tender mother, and provide for her four-footed babies a snug and comfortable home. ”

“ One day when the bear came home as usual from hunting, the old foster-mother said:
“Whenever you meet with men, treat them as if you were of one kin with them; never seek to harm them unless they first attack.”
And it heard the foster-mother’s words and did as she had said.
And thus the old foster-mother kept the bear with her. In the summer it went out hunting in the sea, and in winter on the ice, and the other hunters now learned to know its ways, and received shares of its catch. ”

“ After a run of three or four miles they struck their old route, retreated as before, and again swam the lake, but continued their way on up the range.
At timberline there were clusters of thickly [Pg 239] matted, low-growing trees with open spaces between. Closely pressed, the bears made a stand. Unfamiliar with timberline trees, two of the dogs in dodging the bears leaped into the matted growths. With feet half entangled they were caught by the bears before they could make the second quick move. The mother bear killed one dog with a single stroke of her forepaw and the cubs wrecked the other. ”

“ The polar bear, unlike his brown cousins, fishes and hunts all the winter through, and it is only the mothers which take refuge in caves hollowed out of the snow, where their little ones are born in early spring, and nestle down by her side in their icy home. And when the cubs can run, both father and mother care for them with true devotion, defending them against all attacks, and pushing them before them when pursued, even going so far as to take them in their teeth and swim away with them when they cannot otherwise save them. ”

“ But Auntie Cinnamon's twins still tremble at the thought of meeting Grandfather Grizzly.
18 BABY BEAR'S PARTY Baby Bear loved the birds, so Mother Bear was not much surprised when Baby Bear dropped his wee porridge spoon at the breakfast table, and said in a shrill voice:
"Let's invite all the birds to a party!"
"We will give the party to-morrow," said Mother Bear. "But what shall we offer the birds to eat?" ”