BEAR. 



eastern part of the old continent it is more southerly. 

 The numbers, also, increase towards the east ; and 

 are probably greater about Kamtschatka than any 

 where else ; though there, as well as throughout the 

 rest of Siberia, they are very systematically hunted, 

 but it is only by a very scattered population. 



In considering the progressive history of the bears, 

 we are, therefore, to regard them as on the decline in 

 the eastern continent, in the north of Europe, and in 

 Siberia, and when we turn to those parts of North 

 America which have been settled by Europeans and 

 their descendants, we find that, though the com- 

 mencement of the decay be more recent, the progress 

 of it has been much more rapid, though it does not 

 appear that, in that part of the world, any species 

 has become extinct. These few observations will, 

 at least in part, show to what stage of the history of 

 countries bears belong , and we shall now give a 

 short descriptive notice of them as an existing race. 



The generic characters of the bears are, briefly, 

 these: The incisive teeth are six in each jaw, those 

 in the upper jaw have one large middle lobe on their 

 points, and a smaller one on each side, and those in 

 the lower jaw have two lobes. The canines are 

 conical, slightly bent, and placed at some distance 

 from the incisives. There are three false molars in 

 each side of the upper jaw, and four in each side of 

 the under. These are all of small size, and liable to 

 decay or fall out. Then there is one carnivorous or 

 tearing grinder, and three tuberculated ones in each 

 side of both jaws. The carnivorous teeth are pro- 

 portionally smaller than in the true carnivora, and 

 they are not of quite so tearing a character, the 

 anterior point is wanting, and the central and pos- 

 terior ones are rather small and blunt. The tongue 

 is soft. Such is the structure of the feeding organs 

 in the bears ; they are by no means well adapted 

 for feeding upon flesh in its recent state ; and 

 they accord with the fact, that the animals never 

 attack when they can find food which is more easily 

 managed. 



The muzzle is variously produced in the different 

 species, and terminates in a moveable cartilage. The 

 sense of smelling is understood to be keen ; and 

 from the soft tongue, and the partiality of the animals 

 for honey and other sweet substances, it is presumed 

 that the taste must also be acute. The eyes are 

 small, and, in the ordinary states of the animal, by no 

 means ferocious in their expression. The ears are 

 also small. The body is very thick and strong ; and 

 the length of the covering, which is intermediate 

 between wool and hair, very thick and firmly planted 

 in the skin, gives them a shaggy and clumsy appear- 

 ance. This is in part increased by the mode of walk- 

 ing, and by the tail being so very short as to be with 

 difficulty perceived. There are no clavicles to keep 

 the shoulder bones steadily apart, and thus, as the fore 

 legs are moved, the blade-bones " work" much more 

 on the sides than in animals which have clavicles. 

 The hind legs too, eeem awkward, especially to us 

 who are most familiar with four footed animals which 

 walk on the toes, and have the first flexure of the 

 leg with its joint projecting backwards. That joint, 

 which is really the ankle-joint, is at the ground in 

 the bears, and thus the first joint of their hind legs, 

 bends the other way from that with which we are 

 most familiar. 



From these peculiarities of formation, we are 

 accustomed to regard a bear as an animal which is 



" loosely put together,'' and that it must walk with 

 pain and difficulty. Such, however, is not the case. 

 The broad base which the foot of the bear forms, 

 enables it to walk very securely, even in difficult 

 paths ; its progress is more rapid than we could 

 suppose ; and the firmness with which it can stand 

 on the flat soles of the hind feet, enables it to use 

 the fore-paws in grasping. The want of clavicles 

 enables it to grasp and hug between the fore-legs, 

 much more powerfully than could be done by a cla- 

 vicled animal ; and this power is of great service to 

 it, not only in climbing, an operation to which it 

 must often have recourse for its food, but in Imbuing 

 its enemies, which it does so powerfully, that :i strong 

 animal is strangled by compression of the chest. 

 Climbing is, however, the proper function of the 

 want of clavicles, and climbing by grasping the bole 

 of the tree between the paws, and not by grasping 

 with the single paw, as the quadrumana do with their 

 hands. And this mode of climbing answers uncom- 

 monly well in those places where the bears are most 

 abundant. Pine forests are its haunts ; and where 

 pines grow close together, they have no lateral 

 branches till a considerable height above the ground. 

 Such trees could not easily be climbed by animals 

 which grasped only with the hands. The paws of 

 the bear have the claws long and strong, and mode- 

 rately bent, adapted for digging, but capable also of 

 inflicting very dangerous wounds ; and while the animal 

 hugs with the fore-paws, it is very apt to lacerate 

 with the claws of the hind ones. 



Bears live chiefly in dens and holes of the earth, 

 though rather in natural ones than in those of their 

 own forming ; and they not unfrequently take up 

 their abodes in hollow trees. This method of lodging 

 is one reason for which they prefer places which are 

 rough and wild, for they spend much of their time in 

 their habitations. They hybcrnate less or more, 

 according to the climate, and during the time of their 

 hybernation they, like other animals which have that 

 habit, cease to eat. They do not require the same 

 shelter as most hybernating animals, in consequence 

 of the almost impenetrable thickness of their winter 

 coat, and of the quantity of fat which, at the time 

 when they retire, they have accumulated under it. 

 These protections prevent their temperature from 

 sinking so low as that of most other hybernating 

 mammalia ; and the consequence is, that their func- 

 tions are not so completely suspended their slumber 

 is not so profound. They do not move about, neither 

 do they eat, but live upon the accumulated fat ; and 

 when the climate renders the time of their retreat 

 long, they reappear again in a very lean and exhausted 

 condition. 



There is some difference in the hybernation of the 

 sexes, at least in some of the specie?, and it is perhaps 

 what we would not, upon a superficial view of the 

 matter, expect. The pairing time is the summer 

 season, a little sooner or later, according to the 

 climate, so that the period of hybernation is that of 

 gestation. One would at first suppose that there 

 should be then a demand for nourishment in the 

 female much greater than in the other sex j because, 

 although her own system may be, in many of its 

 parts, in a state of indolence, we must suppose that 

 it must be active in so far as the bringing forward of 

 her progeny is concerned. But the female retires 

 much earlier in the season than the male, and her 

 hybernation appears to be much more close and pro- 



