Nor do these big bears always content themselves merely with the carcasses of their brethren.  A black bear would have a poor chance if in the clutches of a large, hungry grisly; and an old male will kill and eat a cub, especially if he finds it at a disadvantage.  A rather remarkable instance of this occurred in the Yellowstone National Park, in the spring of 1891.  The incident is related in the following letter written to Mr. William Hallett Phillips, of Washington, by another friend, Mr. Elwood Hofer.  Hofer is an old mountain-man; I have hunted with him myself, and know his statements to be trustworthy.  He was, at the time, at work in the Park getting animals for the National Museum at Washington, and was staying at Yancey’s “hotel” near Tower Falls, His letter which was dated June 21st, 1891, runs in part as follows: 

“I had a splendid Grizzly or Roachback cub and was going to send him into the Springs next morning the team was here.  I heard a racket outside, went out, and found him dead.  An old bear that made a 9 1/2 inch track had killed and partly eaten him.  Last night another one came, one that made a 8 1/2 inch track, and broke Yancy up in the milk business.  You know how the cabins stand here.  There is a hitching post between the saloon and old house, the little bear was killed there.  In a creek close by was a milk house, last night another bear came there and smashed the whole thing up, leaving nothing but a few flattened buckets and pans and boards.  I was sleeping in the old cabin, I heard the tin ware rattle but thought it was all right, supposed it was cows or horses about.  I don’t care about the milk but the damn cuss dug up the remains of the cub I had buried in the old ditch, he visited the old meat house but found nothing.  Bear are very thick in this part of the Park, and are getting very fresh.  I sent in the game to Capt.  Anderson, hear its doing well.”

Grislies are fond of fish; and on the Pacific slope, where the salmon run, they, like so many other beasts, travel many scores of miles and crowd down to the rivers to gorge themselves upon the fish which are thrown up on the banks.  Wading into the water a bear will knock out the salmon right and left when they are running thick.

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