THE SCIENTIFIC CLASSIFICATION OF BEARS 



IT was formerly the custom to class the North American 

 bears in three groups — Blacks, Grizzlies, and the 

 Polar Bear. The study during recent years of a series of 

 several hundred skulls, including many belonging to the 

 huge bears of the Alaskan coast region, showed this classi- 

 fication to be inadequate, and, scientific naturalists having 

 added four more strongly marked species to our fauna, it 

 became necessary, in view of the remarkable characters 

 presented by these new forms, to rearrange our bears. 



According to Dr. C. Hart Merriam's classification of 

 the North American bears, these may now be classed in 

 five well-marked, superspecific groups or types: 



1. The Polar Bear. 



2. The Black Bears. 



3. The Grizzly Bears. 



4. The Sitka Bear Type. 



5. The Kodiak, or Alaska Peninsula Bear. 



The five groups are unequally related. The Polar 

 Bear belongs to an independent genus. The Black Bears 

 differ more from the others, taken collectively, than the 

 latter do from one another; and seem to be the only ones 

 whose distinctive character is of suflBcient weight to en- 

 title them to subgeneric recognition. 



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