The Grizzly, Our Greatest Wild Animal. Enos A. Mills

of taking time off and having a change from the routine of life. The ability to concentrate in eager play is probably one of the best evidences of the grizzly’s unusual brain-power. It is good to know that, although most of the time he lives alone and takes things seriously, he also has the power to relax and to build and restore himself in play. This may help to give contentment to solitary life in home territory.

      When well fed, the grizzly sometimes strolls over his estate and pauses to watch the antics of other wild life. He will stand in a stream to see the ways of water-ouzels. The sliding of otter at play appears to interest him, and I have discovered otter-slides by following his tracks to them. Once, when I was enjoying the play of a number of beaver racing and splashing in a pond, a grizzly watched them for a time from the edge of the woods, then came out on the dam and sat down where he could better see them. Though a solitary and self-contained baron, he has many entertaining interests.

      There are times at home, or abroad, when the grizzly is not deeply interested in anything, when time hangs a little heavy on his hands, or on his mind. Sometimes at home he doesn’t quite know what to do with himself. He isn’t hungry, he can’t think of any place where he cares to go, he isn’t interested in swimming, he doesn’t even want to play. He doesn’t care to lie down and sleep. He starts off languidly, stops, moves on, rears up, takes a bite out of the bark of a tree; but he doesn’t care for the bark to eat and doesn’t even look up to see how high he has bitten.

      The grizzly is a descendant of a long line of wanderers and may occasionally explore surrounding territory for sheer adventure. If much harassed by settlers, he will move to a permanent home in lands far distant. It would be comparatively easy for a grizzly to become acquainted with four or five thousand miles of territory. He travels rapidly, has endurance, and in a single night could cover a hundred miles or more.

      Some bears get the idea of territorial expansion and go forth to seize a part of a neighbor’s hunting-ground. Thus one bear may be annoyed by another who makes too frequent raids into his domain, and feel called upon to defend his territory against the invader. When past prime a bear is sometimes driven forth into an unfriendly world by a young, vigorous conqueror.

      On one occasion I tracked a grizzly for sixty miles from the margin of its home range. It traveled along a line that indicated it had a definite place in mind to which it was going. It explored a cañon region, and, a day or two later, as tracks in the snow showed, went back to its old range along the trail it had followed in leaving it.

      Going one autumn from Estes Park to North Park, Colorado, I came upon a grizzly’s track in the upper end of Forest Cañon. For several miles it had followed an old wild-life trail. It crossed the Continental Divide, then the No-Summer Mountains. From its trail I judged that it, too, knew where it was going.

      Had these bears gone to explore, to see the opportunities of a new region? Or had they returned to old territory which they knew, perhaps to obtain some particular kind of food, or just to have an outing? If seeking new domains, it is possible that they would explore a number of localities before selecting one.

      In a few localities bears migrate in the spring and return home in the fall. In these migrations the grizzly breaks his solitary custom and travels in company. Most likely the bears happen to be on the same route at the same time, and, like Pullman passengers, travel together without speaking.

      I saw eight grizzly bears one November traveling single file northward from Middle Park. Back-tracking, I found that they had come from the mountainous empire around the southern end of this park. They crossed over into North Park in almost a straight line. Were they, I wondered, heading for a new home, or was this an annual foraging affair? The topography of the country traveled had some bearing on the common route taken, but why were they traveling together? I heard of a number of bears traveling together in northern New Mexico.