That still-hunter is
in luck who in the fall finds an accessible berry-covered hillside which
is haunted by bears; but, as a rule, the berry bushes do not grow close
enough together to give the hunter much chance.
Like most other wild animals, bears which have known the neighborhood
of man are beasts of the darkness, or at least of the dusk and the
gloaming. But they are by no means such true night-lovers as the big
cats and the wolves. In regions where they know little of hunters they
roam about freely in the daylight, and in cool weather are even apt to
take their noontide slumbers basking in the sun. Where they are much
hunted they finally almost reverse their natural habits and sleep
throughout the hours of light, only venturing abroad after nightfall and
before sunrise; but even yet this is not the habit of those bears which
exist in the wilder localities where they are still plentiful. In these
places they sleep, or at least rest, during the hours of greatest heat,
and again in the middle part of the night, unless there is a full moon.
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