The Yellow Bear of Louisiana. 151 



the specimen now living [in the Philadelphia Zoological Garden] 

 is in autumn a rich reddish brown, almost bay. As his coat 

 becomes worn and faded he becomes pale yellowish brown, 

 the color being generally uniform over the body."* This 

 bear was presented to the garden by the late General James 

 S. Brisbin, then stationed at Omaha, Nebraska, from which cir- 

 cumstance Mr. Brown infers that it came from the Rocky 

 Mountain region an inference that hardly seems safe, particu- 

 larly if the animal really proves to be U. lateolus. On the other 

 hand, it is by no means certain that lateolas is always yellow ; 

 and if I were to hazard a conjecture, in view of what little is 

 known on the subject, it would be to the effect that the normal 

 color is black. 



Geographic Distribution, Very little is known of the geographic 

 distribution of this bear further than the fact that it inhabits 

 Louisiana. It may be found to range over much of the low- 

 lands of the Gulf and South Atlantic states, and to intergrade 

 with the black bear of the mountains of Tennessee and the Caro- 

 linas. A semi-fossil skull from the bed of an old stream near 

 Fort Worth, Texas, examined by me, and the skull found by 

 Professor Cope in a cave in the Ozark hills, in southern Missouri, 

 recently described by Mr. Arthur E. Brown, may belong to an 

 ancestor of this species rather than the species itself. 



The name cinnamomum of Audubon and Bachmanf cannot 

 be applied to this species, because luteolus has thirty-three years' 

 priority, and also because cinnamomum was based on an animal 

 from the northern Rocky mountains, which has small molars, 

 like the common black bear of the northeastern United States. 



*Forest and Stream, December 16, 1893, 518. 



f Ursus americanus var. cinnamomum Audubon and Bachman, Quadru- 

 peds of North America, vol. iii. 1854, 125-127. 



