44 The Grizzly Bear 



Gray advised that he should be killed, but I opposed the 

 proposition, and, for aught I know, he still roams in his 

 native haunts." 



Here is one of the times when one could wish that 

 Adams's interest had had a more scientific bias. It is 

 only roughly that we are able to set from seven to nine 

 months as the approximate time before Lady Washington 

 gave birth to a male cub. Adams named him Fremont, 

 but he seems to have done little credit to his romantic 

 begetting and his noble parentage, either in intelligence 

 or looks. 



In the American Naturalist for May, 1886, under 

 the title of "Domestication of the Grizzly Bear," John 

 Dean Caton, LL.D., discusses Adams's adventures, de- 

 scribes his taming of Lady Washington, Ben Franklin, and 

 Fremont, and says that at first he looked upon this book 

 as an entertaining romance or at least as much embel- 

 lished. But that, "upon inquiring in San Francisco, I met 

 reliable persons who had known him well and had seen 

 him passing through the streets of that city followed by 

 a troupe of these monstrous grizzly bears, which paid not 

 the least attention to the yelping dogs and the crowds of 

 children which closely followed them, giving the most 

 conclusive proof of the docility of the animals." This is 

 the only reference I have ever seen made to Adams's 

 book, and Mr. Caton's glimpse of him in the streets of 

 San Francisco is interesting, and, if that were needed, 

 confirmatory. 



In 1907, having been informed by Dr. C. Hart Merriam 

 that the author, Mr. Hittell, was still living in San Fran- 

 cisco, I wrote to him asking for some information about 



