No sooner had last month's NATURE NOTES been mailed -- in which we stated that "without doubt the next issue will herald a bear's appearance" than Ranger Carl Tice discovered a hibernating bear and asked the Naturalist if he wished to get a photo of it. Consequently we were soon approaching Bruin's lair -- rather warily however for although bears are supposed to be "dopey" when just awakening it is said that the exception proves the rule. In such a case we might have been given a longer run than Abie's Irish Rose!

The bear tree was a large, living Cedar but, as is often the case, it was possessed of a hollow center. Bruin had ripped off a large chunk of the thin, wood shell to expose the cavity within and there he had curled up for his winter's nap. We found, upon arrival, that our bear had awakened and in the process of arranging the camera Bruin just went away from there -- we took a picture of his den anyway. The cavity was large enough for a good sized man and it was lined with Cedar boughs torn from the smaller trees nearby. There the bear had slept the winter away. This happened on Feb. 26th. and is early for bears in this Park. Last year the first evidences of them were seen in the Park on March 23rd.