(BIG GAME OF NORTH AMERICA 361 
_ 2,000-Ib. grizzlies are quite common, and ‘as big as a bull’ is 
_- but a-mild way of describing nine bears out of ten shot by 
: ‘As a matter of fact, 1am by no means prepared to doubt 
all their stories. There are unquestionably some exceptional 
monsters met with now and again, but too many of those in- 
stanced have been described merely from the impression made 
on the hunter's mind by the sight of a gigantic track which 
has spread in soft snow or mud. The largest grizzly of which 
I have had anything like trustworthy information in my own 
wanderings was shot in Alaska, at English Bay, Kodak Island, 
by Mr. j. C. Tolman, now Customs officer at Wrangel. As 
Mr. Tolman allows his name to appear, and as he enjoyed an 
enviable reputation for veracity among men who had known 
him for years, I give the dimensions of his big bear as he gave 
them to me, extracted from notes made in his diary at the 
time at which he killed him. The bear was killed only a few 
miles from a settlement, and was actually weighed, turning the 
scales at 1,656 lbs. dead weight not cleaned ; his hide when 
freshly skinned measured 13 ft. 6 ins. from nose to anus ; 
from ear to ear he measured 13 ins. ; from poll to nose, 
20 ims.; the length of the hind-foot was 18 ins. and the 
breadth of the forefoot 12 ins. He was killed by a single 
shot in the head from a Winchester rifle. 
The largest bear which I have myself shot was also an 
Alaskan, but infinitely smaller than the above ; still, even this 
bear gave four strong men all they could do, with a rope round 
her neck, to drag her, when dead, down a sloping mud bank 
into a canoe laid over on its side to receive her. Her forearm, 
when skinned, measured 23 ins., fair measurement, the tape 
being stretched as tight as it would go. The Indians put this 
__ bear at from 1,000 to 1,500 lIbs., and I dare say she really 
_ weighed nearly 800 or possibly goo Ibs., but I am no judge of 
an animal’s weight, and had no means of weighing her. I 
have myself measured skins in Mr. Boscowitz’s store at Victoria 
(also brought down from Alaska) which measured 9 ft. 10 ins. 
