Ii6 THE LIVING ANIMALS OF THE WORLD 



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[Ealing 



SYRIAN BEAR 



This is the bear generally alluded to in the Old Testament 



winter, and in great demand 

 for rich Russians' sledge-rugs. 

 The finest bear-skins of all are 

 bought for the caps of the 

 Grenadier and Coldstream 

 Guards. In the Alps the bears 

 occasionally visit a cow-shed 

 in winter and kill a GOW ; but 

 as a rule the only damage done 

 by those in Europe is to the 

 sheep on the hills in the far 

 north of Norway. Tame brown 

 bears are amusing creatures, 

 but should never be trusted. 

 They are always liable to turn 

 savage, and the bite is almost 

 as severe as that of a tiger. 

 Men have had their heads 

 completely crushed in by the 

 bite of one of these animals. 

 In Russia bears are shot in the following manner. When the snow falls, the bears retire into the 

 densest thickets, and there make a half-hut, half-burrow in the most tangled part to hibernate in. 

 The bear is tracked, and then a ring made round the cover by beaters and peasants. The 

 shooters follow the track and rouse the bear, which often charges them, and is forthwith shot. 

 If it escapes, it is driven in by the beaters outside. High fees are paid to peasants who send 

 information that a bear is harboured in this way. Sportsmen in St. Petersburg will go 300 or 

 400 miles to shoot one on receipt of a telegram. 



The brown bear, like the reindeer and red deer, 

 is found very little modified all across Northern Asia, 

 and again in the forests of North America. There, 

 however, it undergoes a change. Just as the red deer 

 is found represented by a much larger creature, the 

 wapiti, so the brown bear is found exaggerated into 

 the great bear of Alaska. The species attains its 

 largest, possibly, in Kamchatka, on the Asiatic side 

 of Bering Sea ; but the Alaskan bear has the credit 

 with sportsmen of being the largest. A skin of one of 

 the former, brought to the sale-rooms of Sir Charles 

 Lampson & Co., needed two men to carry it. Last 

 spring, in the sale-rooms of the same great firm, some 

 persons present measured the skin of an Alaskan bear 

 which was 9 feet across the shoulders from paw to paw. 



THE GRIZZLY BEAR. 



This is a very distinct race of brown bear. It has 

 a flat profile, like the polar bear ; in addition it grows 

 to a great size, is barely able to climb trees, and has the 



w. D. Dondo] [Rent's Part largest claws of any they have been known to meas- 



LARGE RUSSIAN BROWN BEAR Ure5 inches along the curve The true grizzly, which 



The picture sAotvs to ivhat a size and strength the . . 



broion bear attains use " to be found as far north as 61 latitude and south 



