MAMMALIA — BEAR. 105 



dancing ; his bear dance, as he calls it, being nothing more than a close 

 imitation of his shaggy quadruped instructors. 



The brown bear is upwards of four feet long. He inhabits Europe and 

 the temperate parts of Asia. 



THE GRIZZLY BEAR.i 



This animal inhabits the northern part of America, and is, perhaps, the 

 most formidable of all bears in magnitude and ferocity. He averages twice 

 the bulk of the black bear, to which, however, he bears some resemblance 

 in his slightly elevated forehead, and narrow, flattened, elongated muzzle. 

 His canine teeth are of great size and power. The feet are enormously 

 large ; the breadth of the fore foot exceeding nine inches, and the length of 

 the hind foot, exclusive of the talons, being eleven inches and three quarters, 

 and its breadth seven inches. The talons sometimes measure more than 

 six inches. He is, accordingly, admirably adapted for digging up the 

 ground, but is unable to climb trees, in which latter respect he differs wholly 

 from every other species. The color of his hair varies to almost an indefi- 

 nite extent, between all the intermediate shades of a light gray and a black 

 brown ; the latter tinge, however, being that which predominates. It is 

 always in some degree grizzled, by intermixture of grayish hairs, only the 

 brown hairs being tipped with gray. The hair itself is, in general, longer, 

 finer, and more exuberant than that of the black bear. 



The neighborhood of the Rocky Mountains is one of the principal haunts 

 of this animal. There, amidst wooded plains, and tangled copses of bough 

 and underwood, he reigns as much the monarch, as the lion is of the sandy 

 wastes of Africa. Even the bison cannot withstand his attack. Such is 

 his muscular strength, that he will drag the ponderous carcass of the animal 

 ♦x> a convenient spot, where he digs a pit for its reception. The Indians 



1 Ursus ferox, Lewis & Clarke. 



14 



