THE BEAR. 



PLATE XXXIII. THE BEAR. 



OF the Bear there are three different kinds, the Brown 

 Bear of the Alps, the Black Bear of North America, which 

 is smaller, and the great Greenland or White Bear. 

 These, though different in their forms, are no doubt of the 

 same original, and owe their chief variations to food and 

 climate. They have all the same habitudes, being equally 

 carnivorous, treacherous and cruel. 



The Brown Bear is properly an inhabitant of the tem- 

 perate climates ; the black finds subsistence in the northern 

 regions of Europe and America; while the great white 

 bear takes refuge in the most icy climates, and lives where 

 scarcely any other animal can find subsistence. 



The brown bear is not only savage, but solitary ; he 

 takes refuge in the most unfrequented parts, and the most 

 dangerous precipices of uninhabited mountains. It chooses 

 its den in the most gloomy parts of the forest, in some cav- 

 ern that has been hollowed by time, or in the hollow of 

 some old enormous tree. There it retires alone,- and 

 passes some months of the winter without provisions, or 

 without ever stirring abroad. However, this animal is 

 not entirely deprived of sensation, like the bat or the dor- 

 mouse, but seems rather to subsist upon the exuberance of 

 its former flesh, and only feels the calls of appetite, when 

 the fat it had acquired in summer begins to be entirely 

 wasted away. In this manner, when the bear retires to 

 its den, to hide for the winter, it is extremely fat ; but at 

 the end of forty or fifty days, when it comes forth to seek 

 for fresh nourishment, it seems to have slept all its flesh 

 away. It is a common report, that during this time they 



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