ORDER CARNIVORA: CARNIVORES 221 



on their carcasses, it is often accused of having killed the animals. 

 Its diet consists largely of insects and their larvae and various kinds 

 of plant food, especially berries. It also catches voles and lemmings. 

 (Einar Lb'nnberg, in litt., October, 1936.) 



Under present conditions the bears are not threatened with ex- 

 tinction (Einar Lonnberg, in litt., November 15, 1932) . 



Spain (U. a. pyrenaicus) . Cabrera (1914, p. 153) gives the range 

 of this race as the Pyrenean and Cantabrian districts: Pyrenees 

 of Aragon and Catalonia; mountains of Santander and Asturias; 

 extreme north of the Provinces of Palencia and Leon and the 

 eastern part of Lugo. In historic and even comparatively recent 

 times it ranged more to the south, reaching at least the center of 

 the peninsula. In 1582 Argote de Molina reported it not far from 

 Madrid. 



"Bears still occur not unfrequently all along the Cantabrian 

 range of mountains. On the central chain of Spanish mountains 

 they seem to be rarer. There are none now in Portugal. Formerly, 

 as lately as the sixteenth century, before the devastation of the 

 forests, the bear seems to have had a much "wider distribution in 

 the Peninsula." (Gadow, 1897, p. 362.) 



In Asturias it nightly raids the maize-fields in the valleys in 

 September. It is also in the habit of attacking and destroying many 

 cattle. It is tracked to its covert, and a drive with beaters is organ- 

 ized. From 20 to 30 bears are killed in Asturias every year. 

 (Marquis de Villaviciosa de Asturias, in Chapman and Buck, 1910, 

 pp. 296-297.) 



France (U. a. pyrenaicus in the Pyrenees; U. a. arctos in the 

 Alps). Trouessart states (1884, pp. 195-196) that the species is 

 restricted to the forested and the wildest regions of the Alps and 

 the Pyrenees. It occasionally ravages the wheatfields and the vine- 

 yards. It becomes more carnivorous with age and then forms the 

 habit of making raids upon sheep and calves, and finally it even 

 attacks grown cattle and horses. 



E. Bourdelle (1937, pp. 178-181, and in litt., March 6, 1937) gives 

 the following account: 



Formerly rather widely spread in the mountainous regions of 

 France Vosges, Jura, Cevennes, Alps, and Pyrenees it disappeared 

 from the first three areas during the past century, and it now exists 

 only in the Alps and the Pyrenees. It is generally believed to have 

 disappeared from the French Alps and that the last two animals 

 were killed in 1898 in the Forest of Vercors in these mountains. 

 However, fresh tracks were observed in the same region in 1913, in 

 1928, and again during the past few weeks. The extent and wildness 

 of the Forest of Vercors militate in favor of the possibility of a 

 few bears surviving there. 



