The moment a bear shows that he is about to climb a tree in order to get out of the ground scuffle with his opponents, the dogs, and attempts to do so, the dogs with one accord pitch at him, until there are so many hanging to his hind legs that often he can not climb, and falls on his back to rid himself of and to fight them. He can fight when on his back as well as in any other position, for he embraces them in his arms, by no means gently. He may try climbing a tree three or four times before he can sufficiently rid himself of the dogs; even then, perhaps, he may have one or two hanging to his legs, which he carries with him maybe ten or twelve feet up the tree, and the dogs, under the greatest excitement, keep perfect consciousness of the distance, and they are able to fall without being injured. Let us now turn our attention to the mothers, or she-bears. They become mothers during the period of their hibernation, going into the caves at the time already mentioned when the other fat bears hibernate, and lie dormant until the time their cubs are born, which is about the middle of February. These require a great deal of the mother's attention, and she is faithful and follows her motherly instincts to her own death, if need be. After the cubs are born she goes once every day for water, which, with her accumulated fat, produces milk for the sustenance of her young, she having selected her cave near a stream of running or living water. She does not eat a particle of any food from the first of December to the middle of April. By the time she leaves her bed, where she has been for four months in solitude, the cubs are sufficiently large to follow the mother, and should any danger threaten them, to climb a tree, which they are very quick to do, and if they do not do so at the bidding of the mother at once, she catches them up in her fore paws and throws them up against the tree, giving them to understand they must climb for their protection. The male bear is the greatest enemy the mother and the cubs have to look out for; for unless protected by the mother, he will seize and eat the cubs, during the season of the year when bears eat meat, but he is not disposed to hurt the mother bear, unless in a scuffle in trying to get hold of the young; therefore it is necessary for her to have her little ones with her every moment after they come out of the cave where they are born, and where they stay for more than two months before they are brought out into the sunlight. Should danger threaten, and there is a small tree near, she will invariably make her cubs climb it, where they are safe, because the large male bear can not climb very small trees. If she is compelled to send her cubs up a large tree, she stands ready and willing to sacrifice her life for the protection of her young, and not in the annals of natural history can there be found a mother which shows such desperation in the protection of her young as does the mother bear.