150 EXTINCT AND VANISHING MAMMALS 



of domestic reindeer herding into the Arctic portion of the 

 Northwest Territories with the effect of patrolling the range 

 throughout the year, some of these rare species will become 

 extinct within a few years." 



The persistent reports of a grizzly bear existing in the barrens 

 of northern Labrador have from time to time been investigated 

 as far as such tales may, but no real evidence that such an 

 animal is found there has been elicited. Even though the tale 

 were true that a skin of a grizzly had once been brought in, 

 this might have been traded from still farther west. In that 

 way one might account for the origin of the reports. Dr. E. 

 Stirling (1884) sums up the evidence in a brief statement to the 

 effect that John McLean in his notes of 25 years' service in 

 Hudson Bay Territory reports that skins from Ungava had 

 several times been sent to Europe and that a factor named 

 Mittleberger said he had known of the animal in Labrador. 



KODIAK BEAR; BIG BROWN BEAR 



URSUS MIDDENDORFFI Merriam 



Ursus middendorffi Merriam, Proc. Biol. Soc. Washington, vol. 10, p. 69, Apr. 13, 1896 



("Kadiak Island, Alaska"). 

 FIGS.: Merriam, 1896, pi. 4, figs. 2, 3; pi. 5, fig. 2; pi. 6, fig. 2 (skull); 1918, pi. 3 



(skull); Holzworth, 1930 (frontispiece in color and other photographic figures). 



This animal is rated by Merriam as the "largest of living 

 bears, though only slightly larger than Ursus beringiana Mid- 

 dendorff, from Kamschatka; frontal region in male enormously 

 elevated, highly arched, and relatively narrow; zygomata 

 bowed outward to an extraordinary degree ; postzygomatic part 

 of skull very short." Distinctive features are the contact of 

 the forepart of the jugal with the lachrymal bone and the 

 small size of the first upper and last lower molars. The claws 

 are shorter and more curved than in the usual type of grizzly, 

 measuring about 100 mm. on the curve. 



The Kodiak bear is found on Kodiak Island and the adjacent 

 Afognak and Shuyak Islands, but it may be taken as a type 

 of the so-called big brown bears, of which closely allied forms 

 are found on the nearby mainland, such as Ursus gyas from 

 Cook Inlet to the entire length of the Alaska Peninsula. 

 Merriam (1918) writes that "the differences between the 

 grizzlies on the one hand and the big brown bears on the other 



