266 The Wilderness Hitnter. 



in view ; and once slain they only examine it to see about its 

 condition and fur. With rare exceptions they are quite 

 incapable of passing judgment upon questions of specific 

 identity or difference. When questioned, they not only 

 advance perfectly impossible theories and facts in support 

 of their views, but they rarely even agree as to the views 

 themselves. One hunter will assert that the true grisly 

 is only found in California, heedless of the fact that the 

 name was first used by Lewis and Clarke as one of the 

 titles they applied to the large bears of the plains country 

 round the Upper Missouri, a quarter of a century before 

 the California grisly was known to fame. Another hun- 

 ter will call any big brindled bear a grisly no matter where 

 it is found ; and he and his companions will dispute by 

 the hour as to whether a bear of large, but not extreme, 

 size is a grisly or a silver-tip. In Oregon the cinnamon 

 bear is a phase of the small black bear ; in Montana it is 

 the plains variety of the large mountain silver-tip. I have 

 myself seen the skins of two bears killed on the upper 

 waters of Tongue River ; one was that of a male, one of a 

 female, and they had evidently just mated ; yet one was 

 distinctly a " silver-tip " and the other a " cinnamon." The 

 skin of one very big bear which I killed in the Bighorn 

 has proved a standing puzzle to almost all the old hunters 

 to whom I have showed it ; rarely do any two of them 

 agree as to whether it is a grisly, a silver-tip, a cinnamon, 

 or a " smut-face." Any bear with unusually long hair on 

 the spine and shoulders, especially if killed in the spring, 

 when the fur is shaggy, is forthwith dubbed a" roach-back." 

 The average sporting writer moreover joins with the more 



