GILPIN. 2 byl 
ON A CUB FOUND IN A BEARS DEN 
wrong in asserting that an especial form is necessary for every 
zone, and that one form would not be sufficient for both places ; 
or may it not have been that the great auk, with a form accord- 
ing to every naturalist of the purest arctic, flourished better in 
these warm seas, with this form, and owes his extinction to 
being pushed to where it was not adapted for existence. 
On a Cus Founp In a BeEar’s Den, JAN. 12, 1880.—By Dr. 
J. BERNARD GILPIN. 
Own the 12th January, 1880, Stephen Bradford, an Indian, 
hunting moose in the County of Digby, Nova Scotia, discovered 
a bear’s den,—seeing the dark skin of the bear beneath the 
roots of an overturned tree, covered by its mantle of snow. 
His gun being foul, he exploded many caps, and succeeded in 
arousing the bear from her hibernation. Before he could dis- 
charge the gun, she left her den, and he then tracked her through 
the forest in the snow for a mile and a half, when she denned 
again. Ile returned to camp, cleaned his gun, and returning 
shot her, for she proved a she bear, in her temporary den. 
Missing his coat, he returned to the first den, where he recollect- 
ed throwing it off, and there found a cub dead and frozen. This 
cub he. took to my son, who was in camp at the time, and who 
sent it to me. Its weight was eleven ounces. It measured, 
when stretched out, from tip of nose to end of hind toe, between 
ten and eleven inches. It was covered by very fine close hair, 
black upon the back and head but bluish slate towards the belly 
and inside of limbs. The ears were naked; the eyes closed ; 
the tongue exposed, and the jaws slightly open. There were no 
teeth, but the claws were much developed, and the tail long. 
From the umbilicus being entirely healed, and no cicatrix upon 
it, I judged it to be about ten days old. After a careful and 
measured life-size sketch, it was placed in alcohol. Though we 
gain nothing new by the possession of this most rare specimen, 
yet we verify personal observation, and by date, statements 
which have come down to us since the days of Pallas, and 
repeated by Richardson, Godman, and Audubon. Allowing the 
