324 



NOKTH AMERICAN FAUNA 



[No. 55 



a point posteriorly. Nearest in skull characters to idahoensis of the Rocky 

 Mountain region, not closely related to other California forms. Skin charac- 

 ters unknown. 



Measurements of type skull, large old male: Basal length, 331 mm; zygo- 

 matic breadth, 223. 



Distribution and habitat. Unfortunately there is not known to be 

 even a skull of this huge bear from Oregon, although the type was 

 killed so near the Oregon line that a large part of its life may well 

 have been lived within the State. Merriam gives the species as rang- 

 ing in the Siskiyou Mountains of northern California and southern 

 Oregon, north in recent times to Fort Klamath section and Kogue 

 River Valley; in earlier days to lower Willamette Valley (presum- 

 ably the same species) ; south in the Sierra Nevada an unknown dis- 

 tance (fig. 80). A skull from the lower McCloud River he refers 



to this species (1918, p. 

 72) . There are many old 

 records of grizzly bears 

 from the Klamath coun- 

 try, Rogue River, Ump- 

 qua, and Willamette Val- 

 leys, but no recent records. 

 In 1927 W. J. Perry, of 

 the Forest Service at Bend, 

 made a collection of bones 

 in the South Ice Cave, some 

 40 miles south of Bend, 

 and sent them to the Bio- 

 logical Survey for identi- 

 fication. Among these 

 'bones was found one tooth, 

 next to the back lower mo- 

 lar, of a grizzly bear 

 agreeing almost perfectly with the heavy, wide, quadrate molars of 

 corresponding position in the type skull of klamathensis but suffi- 

 ciently smaller to suggest a female of the species. It is an almost 

 perfect tooth of a young bear with unworn cusps, but well blackened 

 with age, and may date back for considerable time, although all of 

 the bones with which it was associated are of present-day species. 

 In fact it may not be more ancient than the time when Lord followed 

 the track of a grizzly in the same general location in 1860. 



From 1811 to 1813 Franchere reported grizzly bears in the Willa- 

 mette Valley as extremely ferocious (1904, p. 323). 



In 1826 Douglas encountered grizzlies near the head of the Wil- 

 lamette, and one of his companions was attacked and had much of 

 his clothing torn off as he escaped up a tree. On the upper Umpqua 

 an old grizzly with 2 cubs was encountered, and Douglas killed 

 1 of the cubs (Hooker, 1836, pp. 126, 131). 



In 1827 Ogden (1910, v. 11, no. 0, p. 217), in the Rogue River 

 Valley, records an encounter with a large grizzly bear that was 

 wounded by the trappers and then attacked by their Indian guide, 

 armed with only a bow and arrow and a small ax. The Indian 

 was seriously and probably fatally injured, but the bear remained 

 in the bushes. 



FIGURE 80. Range of grizzly bears in Oregon : 1, 

 Ursus klamathensis ; 2, U. idahoensis; 3, U. mirus. 

 Type locality circled. 



