Flesh and fish do not constitute the grisly's ordinary diet.At most times the big bear is a grubber in the ground,an eater of insects,roots,nuts,and berries.Its dangerous fore-claws are normally used to overturn stones and knock rotten logs to pieces,that it may lap up the small tribes of darkness which swarm under the one and in the other.It digs up the camas roots,wild onions,and an occasional luckless woodchuck or gopher.If food is very plenty bears are lazy,but commonly they are obliged to be very industrious,it being no light task to gather enough ants,beetles,crickets,tumble-bugs,roots,and nuts to satisfy the cravings of so huge a bulk.The sign of a bear's work is,of course,evident to the most unpracticed eye;and in no way can one get a better idea of the brute's power than by watching it busily working for its breakfast,shattering big logs and upsetting boulders by sheer strength.There is always a touch of the comic,as well as a touch of the strong and terrible,in a bear's look and actions.It will tug and pull,now with one paw,now with two,now on all fours,now on its hind legs,in the effort to turn over a large log or stone;and when it succeeds it jumps round to thrust its muzzle into the damp hollow and lap up the affrighted mice or beetles while they are still paralyzed by the sudden exposure.
The true time of plenty for bears is the berry season.Then they feast ravenously on huckleberries,blueberries,kinnikinnic berries,buffalo berries,wild plums,elderberries,and scores of other fruits.They often smash all the bushes in a berry patch,gathering the fruit with half-luxurious,half-laborious greed,sitting on their haunches,and sweeping the berries into their mouths with dexterous paws.So absorbed do they become in their feasts on the luscious fruit that they grow reckless of their safety,and feed in broad daylight,almost at midday;while in some of the thickets,especially those of the mountain haws,they make so much noise in smashing the branches that it is a comparatively easy matter to approach them unheard.That still-hunter is in luck who in the fall finds an accessible berry-covered hillside which is haunted by bears;but,as a rule,the berry bushes do not grow close enough together to give the hunter much chance.
Like most other wild animals,bears which have known the neighborhood of man are beasts of the darkness,or at least of the dusk and the gloaming.But they are by no means such true night-lovers as the big cats and the wolves.In regions where they know little of hunters they roam about freely in the daylight,and in cool weather are even apt to take their noontide slumbers basking in the sun.Where they are much hunted they finally almost reverse their natural habits and sleep throughout the hours of light,only venturing abroad after nightfall and before sunrise;but even yet this is not the habit of those bears which exist in the wilder localities where they are still plentiful.
In these places they sleep,or at least rest,during the hours of greatest heat,and again in the middle part of the night,unless there is a full moon.They start on their rambles for food about mid-afternoon,and end their morning roaming soon after the sun is above the horizon.If the moon is full,however,they may feed all night long,and then wander but little in the daytime.
Aside from man,the full-grown grisly has hardly any foe to fear.
Nevertheless,in the early spring,when weakened by the hunger that succeeds the winter sleep,it behooves even the grisly,if he dwells in the mountain fastnesses of the far northwest,to beware of a famished troop of great timber wolves.These northern Rocky Mountain wolves are most formidable beasts,and when many of them band together in times of famine they do not hesitate to pounce on the black bear and cougar;and even a full-grown grisly is not safe from their attacks,unless he can back up against some rock which will prevent them from assailing him from behind.A small ranchman whom I knew well,who lived near Flathead Lake,once in April found where a troop of these wolves had killed a good-sized yearling grisly.Either cougar or wolf will make a prey of a grisly which is but a few months old;while any fox,lynx,wolverine,or fisher will seize the very young cubs.The old story about wolves fearing to feast on game killed by a grisly is all nonsense.Wolves are canny beasts,and they will not approach a carcass if they think a bear is hidden near by and likely to rush out at them;but under ordinary circumstances they will feast not only on the carcasses of the grisly's victims,but on the carcass of the grisly himself after he has been slain and left by the hunter.
Of course wolves would only attack a grisly if in the most desperate straits for food,as even a victory over such an antagonist must be purchased with heavy loss of life;and a hungry grisly would devour either a wolf or a cougar,or any one of the smaller carnivora off-hand if it happened to corner it where it could not get away.
