82 NEW YORK ZOOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 



is not desirable to add to the grand total without the best of 

 reasons for doing so. 



Four years have elapsed without the appearance of a zoological 

 collector in the region drained by the Nass and Skeena rivers, 

 and further evidence regarding the white bear of British Colum- 

 bia was slow in coming. At last, however, the efforts of Mr. 

 Francis Kermode. Curator of the Provincial Museum at Victoria, 

 have been crowned with success, in the form of three skins in 

 a good state of preservation. They represent two localities about 

 40 miles apart. The four sjiecimens now in hand are supple- 

 mented by the statements of reliable persons regarding other 

 white bear skins which have been handled or seen by them, and 

 were known to have come from the same region. 



Following the route that a polar bear would naturally be 

 obliged to travel from its most southern haunt in Bering Sea 

 to the Nass River, the distance is about 2,300 miles. But the 

 teeth of these specimens show unmistakably that they are not 

 polar bears. 



There is not the slightest probal)ility that albinism is rampant 

 among any of the known species of bears of North America ; 

 and it is safe to assume that these specimens do not owe their 

 color to a continuous series of freaks of nature. There is no 

 escape from the conclusion that a hitherto unknown species of 

 white bear, of very small size, inhabits the west-central portion 

 of British Columliia, and that it is represented by the four speci- 

 mens now in hand. In recognition of his successful efforts in 

 securing three of these specimens, the new species is named in 

 honor of Mr. Francis Kermode. 



URSUS KFRM()Dh:i, sp. nov. 

 INLAND wiutp: 1!I:.\R. 



Type (No. i), a Hat skin, owikmI b\- llu' rni\ineial Museum, 

 \'ictoria, of an adult female; teeth and claws present, but without 

 cranium. Focalit\-, ( iribble Island, western B)ritish C'olumbia, 

 Lat. 53° 25', Lon.' 129° W. 



Oflicr Specimens. — No. 2. a Hat tann^Ml skin of a very old 

 si)ccimcn, purchased in N'ictoria. and locality gi\en as "the Nass 

 River." Nos. 3 and 4 are the filled-out skins of two cubs, about 

 the size of 1)lack bear cul)s six months old. They were obtained 

 on the Kiiimat Arm of Douglas Channel, about /S miles inland 

 from the western shore of P)anks Island. British ('olunibi:i, ruid 

 bcloncr to the Provincial Museum, X'ictoria. 



