BEAR. 



328 



found ; nor docs she again come abroad till her young 

 ones are able to accompany her. We need hardly 

 mention, that the old story of the cubs of the bear 

 being perfectly shapeless until they are " licked into 

 shape" by the tongue of the mother, is wholly with- 

 out foundation. As is the case with the young of the 

 genus sus, which, though it belongs to a different 

 order, has many habits in common with the bear, the 

 young are rather more handsome than the adult 

 animals. The cubs are rarely, if ever, more than two, 

 and often only one at a litter; they grow rather 

 slowly, and follow the dam for a year, or at least for 

 the whole season of her public appearance. She is 

 a most attached and affectionate mother, bold beyond 

 imagination almost, in the defence of her offspring, 

 and they, even when very young, are ready to " show 

 fight" in defence of her. This maternal affection 

 must have been early noticed ; for, in the Bible, a 

 " bear bereaved of her whelps" is selected as the type 

 of implacable and unrelenting vengeance. This is 

 not confined to the land bears, but extends also to the 

 polar or maritime bear, which, from its size, and the 

 manner of its feeding, is a much more formidable 

 animal than the common land-bear, and far more so 

 than the bears of southern climates. 



Such are some of the general characters ; and we 

 shall now proceed to notice the leading species. The 

 most natural order, or at least, the most convenient 

 one in which to take them, may perhaps be this : 

 first, the land-bear of Europe and of the north of 

 Asia ; secondly, the polar or sea-bear, as connecting 

 Europe and America, and being perhaps most abun- 

 dant on the northern shores of the latter; thirdly, 

 the bears of North America ; fourthly, the bears of 

 /he more southerly regions of that part of the world ; 

 and fifthly, the bears of Southern Asia and the Asiatic 

 isles. 



European Bear. 



1 . Land Scar of Europe and of Xorthem Asia. It 

 is probable that there is only one species, though 

 that species is subject to many clirnatal variations 

 both in shape and in colour ; and the readiness with 

 which it undergoes these may be an argument for the 

 original identity with it of the bears of the south. 

 Of this, however, there is and can be no proof, so 

 that we can include in the species only those which 



inhabit what may be considered as a continuous 

 locality. 



This species (Ursux arctux] is usually styled the 

 " brown bear," and brown in various shades is, no doubt, 

 the prevailing colour ; but it is so far from being in- 

 variably brown, that there are specimens met with in 

 all the shades of colour from black, or at least dark 

 bistre, or soot colour, through brown, up almost to 

 white, though the white retains that half straw-colour 

 sort of tint which is found in the bristles of pigs. The 

 colour is, generally speaking, darker in the summer, 

 and paler in the winter, at which time the skin is 

 finest, and most esteemed ; but there is only a sort of 

 bleaching by the weather, and not a change of colour, 

 as in those animals which pass the winter in very cold 

 countries without hybernating. The brown bear is 

 said not to take up the whole of his fat by internal 

 absorption, but to extract a considerable portion of 

 it by licking from glands in the pads on the soles of 

 his paws. This is the popular opinion ; but it is cer- 

 tainly a singular mode of feeding, and it is at least as 

 likely that he performs the operation alluded to in 

 order to keep up the heat of those parts of his body. 

 There are, no doubt, instances of animals eating their 

 own hair or feathers, and even gnawing the flesh 

 off their bones, but these have happened only in the 

 very extreme of hunger. 



Though the brown bear shows a great deal of spirit 

 when hunted or otherwise attacked, and the female is 

 always dangerous when she has cubs ; and though 

 when pressed with hunger either sex is ferocious 

 enough, the habit of the animal is not to attack. The 

 bears which are led about the streets for show are 

 ferocious, but then they are made so by cruel treat- 

 ment. They are blinded, muzzled, and then beaten, 

 to make them play tricks ; and they of course must 

 resent such treatment, and resent it indiscriminately, 

 as they are incapable of seeing the aggressor. When 

 the barbarity of the age was such as to include bear- 

 baiting among " sports," the bears kept for that 

 purpose were naturally savage ; but this again arose 

 from the treatment they met with. Indeed, as in the 

 case of many other animals, bears have been made 

 the scape-goats of human cruelty, and have been 

 doomed to bear to the wild forests, and hold there, 

 as their native birthright, savage propensities which 

 are of human origin. 



Bears when taken young arc not difficult to tame ; 

 and in that state they are playful and harmless, 

 though, according to the general habit of animals 

 which are domesticated solitarily, they probably get 

 more ferocious as they grow older. On board vessels 

 which trade to Russia tame bears are sometimes 

 kept, which play about the deck and climb the rig- 

 ging, but these are generally young ones ; and though 

 t hev do not attack, if duly fed, they are apt to " show 

 fight" if annoyed. 



In all countries which it inhabits, the brown bear 

 is a favourite animal with the hunter; and it is 

 among the most valuable of the wild ones. The 

 flesh is, at all ages, wholesome ; and in the young 

 ones it is good. To the rude tribes which inhabit 

 the north of Asia, the brown bear is an animal of 

 no small value. " It would be difficult," says Tooke, 

 in his View of the Russian Empire, " to name a spe- 

 cies of animals, excepting the sheep, so variously 

 serviceable to man as the bear is after his death to 

 the Kamtschadales. Of the skin of this animal th^y 

 make beds, coverlets, caps, gloves, and collars lor 

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