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Show The Grizzly's Home Life Male Brute Not. What Might Be Called an Affectionate Father Mother Will Fight to the Death For Her Cubs, There is a deal of discussion among hunters after the big game in the mountains concerning the sort of fathers and husbands grizzly bears make, says Henry G. Tinsley in Outing. Out-ing. The consensus of opinion seems to be that bruin is an unfaithful, heartless spouse and a contemptible father. He will help Madame Bruin seek a cave or an opening in the rocks or mountain side, where their cubs may be born, and he will carry a dainty morsel such as a sheep, a calf or part of a cow's carcass, there for his mate's food. However, a few days after the cubs are born in the family circle he will leave the home, probably never having any further acquaintance with his spouse and , her offspring. Thereafter Madame Bruin must make her own way and provide for her cubs the best way she can. Unlike the black bear, which Is a jolly, fun-loving father that rolls and frolics with his baby children, the male grizzly will have nothing to do with the cubs. Madame Grizzly and her children are companions for two summers and they hibernate rolled together in a ball of fur for about 100 days during the coldest days of winter. The mother bear and her young travel far and wide, moving principally at night. Kit Carson said that the wide range of a family of healthy grizzlies in a summer season is almost incalculable. He had reason rea-son to know of a mother grizzly and her two cubs that once left their hibernating cave among the southern spurs of the Rocky Mountains, in New Mexico one spring in the' forties, crossed Colorado and Wyoming, were seen in the mountains in Montana and' were back in New Mexico again for another winter before' the following follow-ing October. The maternal instinct, however, is as strong in the she grizzly as in any other animal. There are numerous instances of mother bears giving up their lives to save their cubs Irom danger. |