154 PRAIRIE AND FOREST. 



ing to encircle me with his paws, sank slowly by my side. 

 His left fore-foot was smashed to pieces, and his lower jaw 

 splintered, or I believe I never should have lived to narrate 

 the death of the grizzly of the Black Hills. 



CINNAMON BEAR. 



This bear, which is cinnamon in color, and doubtless the 

 connecting link between the grizzly and Arctic species, has 

 considerable resemblance to both, but, smaller and slighter 

 built than the former, still possesses all its vindictiveness 

 of character and powers of vitality, combined with greater 

 activity. 



Although existing chiefly on vegetable diet, it will greed- 

 ily avail itself, whenever opportunity offers, to gorge on 

 flesh ; and to so great an extent has it been known to in- 

 dulge in gluttony, that, on discovery by the hunter, it has 

 been found alike incapable of defense or escape. 



On the first settlement of Oregon and British Columbia, 

 the farmers suffered such serious losses among their valua- 

 ble newly-imported herds of horned cattle and sheep that a 

 war of exterminatio'n was declared against the red bears (as 

 they are frequently there called), which did not terminate 

 in those neighborhoods till the race had there almost be- 

 come extinct. In the vicinity of the Caribou gold mines 

 they now are occasionally to be found, and doubtless will 

 frequent that locality for many years to come, as the sur- 

 rounding country is very rugged, covered with dense tim- 

 ber, and totally unfit for cultivation. 



Many and many are the stories I have heard related by 

 trappers and miners in reference to their adventures with 

 these savage animals ; but as one bear story is so much like 

 another, I desist here, as my personal knowledge of the 

 species is limited, only adding that I have heard it uni- 

 versally affirmed that the activity of the cinnamon bear 



