82 NEW YORK sZOOLOGIGAT SOCIETY. 
is not desirable to add to the grand total without the best of 
reasons for doing so. 
Four years have elapsed without the appearance of a zoological 
collector in the region drained by the Nass and Skeena rivers, 
and further evidence regarding the white bear of British Colum- 
bia was slow in coming. At last, however, the efforts of Mr. 
Francis Kermode, Curator of the Provincial Museum at Victoria, 
have been crowned with success, in the form of three skins in 
a good state of preservation. They represent two localities about 
40 miles apart. The four specimens now in hand are supple- 
mented by the statements of reliable persons regarding other 
white bear skins which have been handled or seen by them, and 
were known to have come from the same region. 
Following the route that a polar bear would naturally be 
obliged to travel from its most southern haunt in Bering Sea 
to the Nass River, the distance is about 2,300 miles. But the 
teeth of these specimens show unmistakably that they are not 
polar bears. 
There is not the slightest probability that albinism is rampant 
among any of the known species of bears of North America; 
and it is safe to assume that these specimens do not owe their 
color to a continuous series of freaks of nature. There is no 
escape from the conclusion that a hitherto unknown species of 
white bear, of very small size, inhabits the west-central portion 
of British Columbia, and that it is represented by the four speci- 
mens now in hand. In recognition of his successful efforts in 
securing three of these specimens, the new species is named in 
honor of Mr. Francis Kermode. 
URSUS KERMODEI, sp. nov. 
INLAND WHITE BEAR. 
Type (No. 1), a flat skin, owned by the Provincial Museum, 
Victoria, of an adult female; teeth and claws present, but without 
cranium. Locality, Gribble Island, western British Columbia, 
Tat 5325 3 eoninl2On Ve 
Other Specinens.—No. 2, a flat tanned skin of a very old 
specimen, purchased in Victoria, and locality given as “the Nass 
River.” Nos. 3 and 4 are the filled-out skins of two cubs, about 
the size of black bear cubs six months old. They were obtained 
on the Kitimat Arm of Douglas Channel, about 75 miles inland 
from the western shore of Banks Island, British Columbia, and 
belong to the Provincial Museum, Victoria. 
