URSUS ISABELLINUS. 69 



lower jaw. Scissor-tooth nearly resembling tlie tuberculate. Soles of the 

 feet usually devoid of hair ; ears small ; snout lengthened ; tail usually 

 very short. 



Bears are mostly large, heavy animals, strictly plantigrade in their 

 walk, and their body covered with long and shaggy hair. Their claws 

 are adapted for digging, being long and stout, and they are mostly expert 

 climbers. Many live almost entirely on fruits and roots, and other vege- 

 table diet ; others much on insects, larvie, honey &c. ; a few are more 

 carnivorous in their habits. TJiey conceal themselves in the daytime in 

 caves, holes of trees, and thickets. 



Gen. Ursus, Linnaeus. 



Teeth as in the characters of the family. The false molars small, often 

 deciduous ; the penultimate lower tuberculate tooth very lai'ge ; scissor- 

 tooth with a flat tuberculated crown ; snout produced, the cartilage 

 mobUe, truncated iu front ; ears small, erect, rounded ; tail very short ; 

 mammae six, four ventral and two pectoral ; feet with very strong claws. 



Bears are found in both continents. Their cylindrical bones are nearer 

 those of man than those of most animals ; the femur, especially, closely 

 approximates the same bone in the human skeleton ; and hence the faculty 

 possessed by bears of standing erect, and of dancing. The sole of the foot, 

 as is well known to sportsmen, leaves a mark not unlike that of the human 

 foot. There are three species in our province, two of which are Himalayan. 



Bears have been subdivided of late into several sub-genera. 



89. Ursus isabellinus. 



HoRSFiKLD. — Blyth, Cat. 224. — U. syriacus, 'H-EUfrioiI Barf ha 

 rich, or BJialu, H. — Harput, in Kashmir. — Drin-mor, in Ladak. Snow 

 bear — Brown bear — Red, yellow, gray, and silver Bear, of sportsmen. 



The Brown Bear. 



Desc. — Of large size, general colour isabelline or yellowish-brown. In 

 winter and spring the fur is long and shaggy, in some inclining to silvery- 

 gray, in othei^s to reddish-brown ; the hair is thinner and darker in 

 summer as the season advances ; and in autumn the under fur has mostly 

 disappeared, and a white collar on the chest is then very a])parent. The 

 cubs show this collar distinctly. The females are said to be somewhat 

 lighter in colour than males. 



