1054 Life-histories of Northern Animals 



however, does not mean a difference of species; they are mere 

 freaks or sports of the black race. A Blackbear may have 

 cinnamon young this year and black the next, or even one of 

 each kind in the same htter. So also a Cinnamon mother 

 may give birth to either Black or Cinnamon young. 



This was very well known to the hunters one hundred 

 years ago. Alexander Henry, writing his 'Journal' on Dead 

 River, which flows into the Red above Winnipeg, says:^ 



"August II, 1808. Late this evening, while the Indians 

 were still drinking, there arrived a party of young men who 

 had been hunting en canot up Dead River; they brought 

 some fresh meat, including that of a large Blackbear and her 

 two cubs, one of which was brown and the other perfectly 

 black. This is frequently the case. I once saw a' Black- 

 bear killed early in the spring whose two cubs were taken 

 alive; one of them was cinnamon and the other black. 

 Both were kept at the Fort for a long time and became 

 perfectly tame." 



In Manitoba, I suppose, about one in twenty Blackbears 

 is a cinnamon. I saw a remarkable specimen in the collection 

 of H. C. Nead, of Dauphin, a very pale straw-coloured Bear 

 with chocolate-coloured face and legs; yet it was clearly of the 

 Blackbear species. 



N. E. Skinner tells me that two young Bears were found 

 in a den at Carberry, Man., about 1895. One of them was a 

 cinnamon, the other black with brownish-gray muzzle. 



A different colour variety is the albino, or pure white 

 freak. Alexander Henry thus records a case on the Red 

 River:' 



"October 13, 1800. Two Indians were with him, Na- 

 naundeyea and Grosse Loge; they had made no hunt as yet. 

 One of them a few days ago saw a full-grown Bear as white 

 as snow. His gun missed fire and the Bear escaped. He 

 assured me that it was not the Grizzly, but the common 

 kind." 



' Journal, A. Henry (1799-1814), pub. 1897, p. 449. 

 'Journal, 1897, p. 118. 



