Bears are the least carnivorous of the Carnivora, subsisting in many districts almost entirely on fruits, nuts, shoots of trees, roots, honey, and ants, with an occasional meal of carrion. In Alaska, however, when the bears wake up from their winter sleep and come abroad they find the rivers almost choked with Pacific salmon which are ascending to spawn, and in these they find an abundant and nourishing food-supply upon which they rapidly grow fat. The duration of the winter-sleep, which may take place in a hollow tree, a cavern, or a cleft in the rocks, depends upon the length of the winter; and it is when they first issue forth from these lairs that bears are in their best coats, the summer fur being short and comparatively valueless, while the skins are also difficult to preserve owing to the fatness of the animals at this season. The females bring forth their cubs, one or two in number, during the period of hibernation. Bears are to a great extent diurnal mammals, whose haunts are chiefly the forests, although in late summer they resort in many localities, such as Kashmir, to the open mountain pastures, where they may be seen grazing at no great distance from flocks of sheep or goats. The adults go about singly or in pairs, the females generally accompanied by their cubs, which may include those of two successive seasons. THE PINE-MARTEN (_Mustela martes_) The marten, or pine-marten, as it is commonly termed in order to distinguish it from its continental relative the beech-marten (_Mustela foina_), is one of those species which are on the verge of disappearing from England and Wales. In the midland and south-eastern counties of England the species appears to have become scarce during the first half of the last century, and in most of these it was killed before 1860, although isolated instances of its occurrence in Hertfordshire, Surrey, and Sussex have been recorded since that date. In Lincolnshire, Norfolk, and Suffolk it survived, however, until the ’eighties; and there have been recent occurrences in Leicestershire. The Lake District and the western side of north and central Wales are at present the strongholds of the species; and the isolated occurrences in other parts of the country appear to be largely due to its wandering habits.