25B NATURAL HISTORY COLLECTIUXS IN ALASKA. 



The skiu of this species is of very little commercial value compared with that of the Black 

 Bear. The traders buy but few of them and they are used by the natives for makiug dog har- 

 nesses, also for sleeping mats and for flaps to hang iu the inner doors of their houses. 



As with the Black Bear their hibernation lasts from October to April. 



During the cruise of the Corwin I saw skins of this animal among the Eskimo north to the 

 vicinity of Point Barrow on the Alaskan coast, and on the Siberian side skins of what appeared 

 to be a precisely similar animal were rather common among the natives both on the Arctic and the 

 Bering Sea coasts. According to the Chukchi these skins were obtained iu the neighboring hills, 

 and in some cases the bears were killed with the long lance, which all of the men there carry. 



A few days before we visited the head of Plover Bay a Bed Bear came down from the hills 

 and smelled arouud a skin tent pitched ou the shore, and when he came to a spot where a pile 

 of blubber lay just inside he coolly tore a hole in the tent-cover and thrusting iu his head made 

 a feast while several women and children sat on the farther side of the tent shivering with fear. 

 The men were all absent at the time, so bruin walked off unmolested when he had finished. 



The reindeer herders all carry long lances to protect themselves and their deer from these bears. 



The amount of individual variation in the color of the fur of the Bed Bear is extremely great 

 and extends from various shades of brown to a bright cinnamon-reel. 



UK.SUS noKRiBiLis Ord. Grizzly Bear (Esk. Tu-hdhi). 

 I 



Biographical notes. — Wherever the Red Bear occurs inAlaska there isfound alsoa bear of about 

 the same size but colored and marked precisely like the "Silver-tipped" Grizzly of the Central 

 Rocky Mountain region of the United States. The Grizzlies and the Red Bears of the Yukon Val- 

 ley offer an interminable amount of individual variation in color. The skins intergrade so that I 

 have frequently thought they formed but extremes of the same species. The Red Bear varies 

 from light rufous to a dark chestnut and reddish or cinnamon brown. The Grizzly often approaches 

 the latter color very closely, but is nearly always easily distinguishable by the gray tips on 

 the hairs. At times this is quite obsolete, and again it is present to an extreme degree, rendering 

 the skiu a light gray or silvery brown. 



Skins of both the Red and the Grizzly Bear average very much larger than those of the Black 

 Bear, so far as I could judge from the large number brought into Saint Michaels from the sur- 

 rounding region during my stay there. 



Owing to the superstitious fears of the natives I found it nearly impossible to secure bear skulls, 

 and as I was confined to the vicinity of Saint Michaels during summer I was unable to make any 

 comparisons of these animals iu the flesh. 



As a rule the fur is longer upon the Grizzly than upon the Red Bear. 



The habits and distribution of the two are nearly identical. 



Both species find their extreme northern limit well within the Arctic circle iu about 69° in 

 Alaska. As the IJlack and the Barren Ground Bear reach about the same latitude it will be seen 

 that the inland range to the north of all these bears laps the coastwise range of the Polar Bear by 

 seven or eight degrees. 



Petrofl" found the "Brown Bear" (by which name he refers to both the Cinnamon and Grizzly) 

 very common on Kadiak Island and on the shores of Cook's Inlet on the mainland, where the 

 largest specimens occur. A skin of one killed iu the vicinity of Kenai Mission in the summer of 

 1880 was 14 feet and 2 inches long. He further states that brown bears occur in parties of twenty 

 or thirty ou the mountains bordering the western side of Cook's Inlet. 



Ursus KiCHARDSOMi Aud. & Bachm. Barren Ground Bear (Esk. Talcu-M). 



Biographical notes.— Ihis. little-known animal occurs about the headwaters of the Yukou, aud in 

 fact all along the eastern boundary of the Territory from about 68° south. From the rarity of its 

 skin among the large number of bear-skins brought to Saint Michaels each year by the fur traders, 

 the species may be considered very rare in the region mentioned. I did not see a skin from below 

 the mouth of the Tanana River ou the Yukon, nor could I learn of its occurrence ou the Pacific 

 slojie of the Alaskan Mountains. 



