CLASSIFICATION OF BEARS 



Scientific naturalists, like other learned gentlemen 

 in large spectacles, have a way (or it sometimes seems 

 as though they had) of using very big words about 

 very small matters. For instance, what they might 

 describe as '^an aquatic larva of Rana cateshiana or 

 other Batrachian," we would call a tadpole. And so 

 on through the list. But we are obliged to assume that 

 they have excellent reasons for their choice of language, 

 and there is no getting around the fact that if we wish 

 to profit by their wisdom we have to learn at least the 

 simple rules of theu^ speech. 



We ought, for example, to understand that when a 

 new animal, or a new variety of an old one, is dis- 

 covered, or rather when it is officially described and 

 listed by a naturalist, it is given a special Latin name 

 which, added to the Latin name of the family to which 

 it belongs, thenceforth serves to identify it among all 

 students of natural history. Moreover, as a compli- 

 ment to the man who thus stood god-parent for it in the 

 scientific world, his name is added, in parentheses, to 

 these Latin designations. Thus the Rocky Mountain 

 grizzly bear is known to technical fame as Ursics hor- 



