150 Merriam The Yellow Bear of Louisiana. 



The largest of the three old male skulls from Mer Rouge, Louis- 

 iana (No. 1155 United States National Museum), affords the 

 following measurements : Basal length (basion to front of pre- 

 maxilla), 292; basilar length of Hensel, 288; zygomatic breadth, 

 187 ; occipito-sphenoid length, 89 ; postpalatal length, 134 ; dis- 

 tance from inferior lip of foramen magnum to plane of front of 

 last upper molar, 193 ; interorbital breadth, 68 ^distance betwean 

 postorbital processes, 97 ; occipito-nasal length, 276 ; greatest 

 length of skull, 326. 



Dental Characters. Molars larger than in any known species 

 of the black bear group (subgenus Eaarctos Gray) ; last upper 

 molar in particular very large and notable for its great breadth 

 as well as length, measuring 30 by 17 mm. in an old male from 

 Prairie Mer Rouge (No. 1155), and doubtless larger in early life, 

 as the tooth is much worn ; the first upper molar in the same 

 specimen measures 19.5 by 15.7 mm. The fourth lower pre- 

 molar is trituberculate, having distinct cusps on the cingulum 

 both anteriorly and posteriorly.* The latter is notched in the 

 middle longitudinally, giving it a double crown. In addition 

 to these cusps, one of the females with less worn teeth than the 

 others has a small but distinct peg-like projection rising from 

 the cingulum on the inner side near the middle, and closely 

 pressed against the main ' cusp, from which it projects only 

 slightly. But this tooth is subject to so much individual varia- 

 tion in bears from the same locality that it would be unsafe to 

 place any reliance on the peculiarity here described unless it 

 is found to hold good in a larger number of individuals than are 

 now available for comparison. Traces of it exist, however, in 

 the other female from Prairie Mer Rouge (No. 988), which is 

 older and has the teeth more worn. 



Color. The name 'yellow bear' given to this species by 

 Shaw and Griffith points to a marked peculiarity of coloration, 

 and Mr. Arthur Erwin Brown, in his interesting article already 

 referred to, describes one of his specimens as " flaxen color, with 

 traces of a darker shade on the nape/' The skull and teeth of 

 this specimen are not described, but the inference is that they 

 agree with the Ozark skull. Another bear, believed by Mr. 

 Brown to be this species, is described as follows : " The color of 



* Black bears from the Adirondacks and various other places often 

 have a distinctly trituberculate crown to the tooth in question (pm f ), 

 but they lack the other peculiarities mentioned. 



