THE BEAR FAMILY. 117 



THE BEAR FAMILY. 

 (Ursidae.) 



All members of the Bear family have a marked resem- 

 blance to one another, and are of heavy massive build, 

 with thick limbs, extremely short tails, and the five 

 toes on each foot armed with powerful fixed claws. 

 Their ordinary gait is slow and measured, and they plant 

 the foot squarely on the ground so the impression is very 

 much like that made by the human being; this feature 

 being more marked in the case of the Bear than in that 

 of other animals of the plantigrade order. Like the dogs 

 they have two pairs of molar teeth in the upper jaw 

 and three in the lower, but the shape of the teeth is dif- 

 ferent. The Bears are evidently descended from dog- 

 like animals, but the majority of them subsist on a vege- 

 table diet or on insects to a much greater extent than on 

 flesh. All Bears are notoriously deficient in hearing and 

 have poor sight, but their sense of smell is very acute. 

 They differ in many important particulars from all other 

 carnivorous animals, and are rightly classed as a separate 

 family with a comparatively small number of species. 

 The fur of the Bear is always coarse, and generally long, 

 thick and shaggy, and of one color all over the body if 

 we except the white collar sometimes found around the 

 neck of the black and the brown Bear. With the excep- 

 tion of a few peculiar species all Bears have forty-two 

 teeth, and the soles of the feet are bare, while the small 

 ears are thickly haired. 



BROWN BEAR. 



The Brown Bear (Ursus-arctos), is the best-known 

 member of the Bear family. The Grizzly Bear of North 

 America, the Syrian Bear, the Isabellan Bear of the 

 Himalayas, and numerous others are really local races 

 of the Brown Bear rather than distinct species of their 

 kind. 



The Brown Bear is an inhabitant of almost the whole 

 of Europe and of Asia to the north of the Himalayas ; and 



