1032 Life-histories of Northern Animals 



(229 mm.) would be small, and 12 inches (305 mm.) very large. 

 Of course, the track is larger than the foot. 



The creature looks so big when charging over the moun- 

 tainside or lying stretched at the feet of the victorious and 

 excited sportsman, that all guesses at its weight, etc., have 

 been absurdly high. 



I remember once watching a good-sized Grizzly walk 

 past; had I guessed his height at the shoulder I should have 

 said at least 4 feet( 1, 220 mm.). But I noticed that he passed 

 without stooping under a certain horizontal branch and this 

 I afterwards found to be but 35 inches (889 mm.) from the 

 ground. 



Similarly, there is no reason to believe that a true Grizzly 

 ever weighed 1,500 pounds, or that any but the Californian 

 Grizzly reaches 1,000 pounds; 600 pounds is more nearly the 

 average weight of males, and 500 of females. Colonel W. D. 

 Pickett, of Meeteetsee, Wyo., for thirty-five years one of the 

 most successful Grizzly hunters in the West, says that of 40 

 wild Grizzlies that he actually weighed, the heaviest went less 

 than 800 pounds.^ 



In the Washington Zoo is a large Grizzly from the Yellow- 

 stone Park. In September, 1894, he weighed 730 pounds, and 

 has since added considerably to his bulk. 



The heaviest weight on authentic record is 1,153 pounds. 

 This is given by G. O. Shields as the weight of an enormous 

 Grizzly that lived eighteen years in Union Park, Chicago. 

 "He was fed to suffocation by the thousands of visitors and in 

 his later years grew so fat he could not walk, could only 

 crawl around."^ The estimates set his weight at 2,000 pounds. 



In general, the Montana Grizzly is of a deep brown colour, 

 darkening to brownish-black along the spine, on the limbs, and 

 on the ears; and grizzled or frosted over with a white tipping 

 of the hair on the upper parts of the body. In some individ- 



" Personal letter to G. O. Shields. 



' Recreation Magazine, August, 1899, p. 135. 



