Her young cubs, when born, are curiously small, helpless little beings, not larger than rats. Generally there are two of them, and they are born about the middle of February. She manages to nourish them without taking any food herself till March or April, when she also, like her better half, sallies forth in search of provender. The young creatures grow but slowly, and do not attain their full size till they are about four years old. Even when about a couple of months old, the little cubs are not much larger than a retriever puppy of the same age. The musquaw finds great difficulty at first in satisfying the cravings of his appetite. He searches for the cranberries in the open bogs, and is driven even to eat the rank marshy grass. As the snow disappears, he seeks for wood-lice and other creatures in rotten trunks. Hungry as he is, he labours very patiently for his food. The prehensile form of his lips enables him to pick up with wonderful dexterity even the smallest insect or berry. As the ice breaks up in the lakes, he proceeds thither to fish for smelts and other small fish, which he catches with wonderful dexterity with his paws, throwing them out rapidly behind him. When, however, pressed by hunger, and unable to obtain the smaller creatures for food, he will attack young deer if he can take them by surprise; but as he can seldom do this, he is often tempted into the neighbourhood of settlements. Here he lies in wait for the cattle as they wander through the woods to their spring pastures; and when once he has taken to this dangerous proceeding, he is said to continue it. On catching sight of a herd, should it not be accompanied by a human being, he drives the animals into some boggy swamp, and there singling out a victim, he jumps on its back, and deals it a few tremendous blows across the head and shoulders, till the poor animal becomes an easy prey. He then drags it off into the neighbouring wood, and devours it at his leisure. This habit is often the cause of his destruction. On any remainder of the animal being found, the aggrieved settler sets off, rifle in hand and axe in his belt, to punish the aggressor. The bear, he well knows, will revisit the carcass. So cunning, however, is Bruin, and conscious of guilt, that he is constantly on the watch, as he returns, for an enemy. He creeps up, accordingly, looking on either side, his caution increasing as he approaches his prey. The hunter, therefore, to outwit him, seeks his trail in the direction in which he has retreated, and conceals himself near it, but at some distance from the carcass. He waits till the sun is setting, when he is almost sure to see the bear come tripping nimbly along, not yet thinking it necessary to employ caution. At this moment a rifle-bullet, placed in his head, deprives him of his intended feast and his life at the same time.