Description and Distribution 6i 



clasp his front legs, man-fashion. They can climb, 

 and that with almost equal ease, any tree that will 

 hold their weight; from a sapling so small that there 

 is just room for them to sink one set of hind claws above 

 the other in a straight line, to an old giant so big that 

 they can only cling to its face, squirrel-fashion, and be- 

 hind the trunk of which (also squirrel-fashion) they 

 can hide, circling as you walk around it. 



Another curious fact about the Black Bear's sharp 

 claws is that these invariably match their owner's hide 

 in color. A black animal always has black claws. 

 A brown one has brown claws. A cinnamon-colored 

 one has cinnamon-colored claws. This is not true of 

 the grizzly. And since, as we will see later, the color of 

 an individual bear often changes with the weathering 

 of its coat, one can approximate the normal, or new- 

 coat, color of the animal from the color of its claws. 



In order to show more clearly than mere words could 

 do the character of the Black Bear's claws and their 

 differences from those of the grizzly, I have photo- 

 graphed a front and hind foot of each animal and also 

 the corresponding tracks made on the ground, and these 

 photographs are here reproduced for comparison and 

 reference. The difference in the fore paws will be 

 seen at a glance; the long, blunt, four-and-a-half 

 to six-inch claws of the grizzly serving to distinguish 

 them unmistakably from the short, sharp, one to one- 

 and-a-half-inch claws of the Black Bear. The hind 



