CONCERNING BEARS. 281 



other physical measurements as naturally come up in a college labora- 

 tory. The student would be getting bis instruction at the same time 

 that he felt himself interested in aiding science, and both he and sci- 

 ence would be gainers. The material so collected might hardly be of 

 the highest accuracy, but it would certainly not be quite without sci- 

 entific value. Any one, who will examine the nature of the material 

 already on hand, will forcibly realize this fact. 



It would be easy to multiply suggestions. Any chemist, who will 

 carefully survey the field, will be surprised at the immense amount of 

 obviously important work which has hitherto been left undone, and 

 which should take precedence of nearly all the chemical investigations 

 now most in fashion. The necessity of this work is based upon no 

 wild speculations, but upon a foundation of the most severely practi- 

 cal ideas. No exti*aordinary difficulties hedge it about, no real im- 

 practicabilijties stand in the way. Certain great laws ought to be 

 discovered, and they can be discovered only by means of researches 

 such as are here suggested. A few years of steady, earnest work 

 upon the part of fifty scientific chemists would accomplish all the 

 chief results which I have ventured to prophesy. 



T 



COKCEENING BEARS. 



By WILLIAM E. SIMMONS, Je. 



HE bear family ( Ursidcz), though comprising a comparatively 

 -J- small number of species, is yet one of the most wide-spread of all 

 the carnivora, being found all over the earth's surface, except in Africa 

 and Australia. In the latter country, there is an animal somewhat re- 

 sembling the bear in appearance, and having the tree-climbing habit, 

 known popularly as the Australian bear. This animal is, however, 

 not a bear, but belongs, with its cousins, the kangaroo, bandicoot, and 

 opossum, to another family. Regarding the existence of the bear 

 in Africa, there has long been some difference of opinion. Herodotus, 

 Virgil, and other ancient writers, speak of Libyan bears. Pliny alludes 

 to Numidian bears being exhibited by Ethiopian hunters in a Roman 

 circus, 61 b. c. Latterly, Ehrenberg and Forskal both mention a 

 black plantigrade animal, called by the natives karvai, which inhab- 

 its the mountains of Abyssinia. They hunted and saw it, but failed 

 to capture a specimen. It is possible that the bear may yet be found 

 in at least a portion of the vast unexplored area of that continent, but 

 the opinion that it does not exist there is now generally held by nat- 

 uralists, and it may reasonably be entertained, until controverted by 

 the finding of a specimen. 



The general characteristics of the bear are the rough, shaggy coat 



