1 6 The Grizzly Bear 



piercing; the front of the fore legs near the feet is usually 

 black, and the fur is finer, thicker, and deeper than that 

 of the black bear; add to which it is a more furious 

 animal and very remarkable for the wounds which it will 

 bear without dying." 



Thus reads the first account of a meeting between a 

 white man and a grizzly. 



I quote at length from Lewis and Clark on this subject, 

 not only because their notes are interesting, accurate, and 

 instructive in themselves, but because, while they are 

 scattered through the pages of a voluminous and un- 

 familiar report, a first-hand acquaintance with them is, 

 in their field, the beginning of knowledge. On May 6, 

 following, the record proceeds: 



"Captain Clark and one of the hunters met this evening 

 the largest brown bear we have seen. As they fired he 

 did not attempt to attack, but fled with a most tremendous 

 roar; and such was his extraordinary tenacity of life that, 

 although five balls passed through his lungs, and he had 

 five other wounds, he swam more than half across the 

 river to a sand bar and survived twenty minutes. He 

 weighed between five hundred and six hundred pounds 

 at least, and measured at least eight feet seven and a 

 half inches from the nose to the extremity of the hind 

 feet, five feet ten and a half inches around the breast, 

 three feet eleven inches around the neck, one foot eleven 

 inches around the middle of the fore leg, and his talons, 

 five on each foot, were four and three-eighth inches in 

 length. This differs from the common black bear in hav- 

 ing its talons longer and more blunt; its tail shorter; its 

 hair of a reddish or bay brown, longer, finer, and more 



