1908.] MAMMALS. 223 



Ursus horribilis Orel. Grizzly Bear. 



Grizzly bears, probably referable to this species, occur throughout 

 the Rocky Mountain range and its eastern spurs west of the Mac- 

 kenzie, north to the Arctic coast. Specimens of grizzly bears from 

 this region are very rare in museums, hence it is impossible to speak 

 A\ith assurance regarding the species. 



We were informed that grizzlies were often killed in the Nahanni 

 Mountains, and that several had been shot near Fort Liard dining 

 recent years. A number of skins are traded annually at Forts Liard 

 and Nelson. At Fort Norman I saw several skins which had been 

 taken in the mountains to the westward. They were of course with- 

 out skulls, and lacked also claws. They were in general of a nearly 

 uniform dark yellowish-brown, the unelerfur frequently overlaid with 

 long yellowish hair. 



From C. P. Gauelet, of Fort Good Hope, I obtained the claws of a 

 large bear said to have been taken near the mouth of the Mackenzie. 

 The fore claws are long and comparatively straight. An imperfect 

 skin obtained at Arctic Red River is smaller, but has similar claws. 

 It is provisionally referred to this species. The termination of the 

 range west of the Mackenzie Delta, locally calleel Black Mountain, 

 is inhabited by large grizzlies, which are said to be very savage when 

 they come out of their elens in the spring. 



This bear was first recorded from the region by Mackenzie, who 

 during his exploration of Peace River noteel the species below the 

 mouth of ' Sinew ' River, a southern tributary entering the Peace 

 a short distance east of the mountains. Richardson states that the 

 species " inhabits the Rocky Mountains anel the plains lying to 

 the eastward of them, as far as latitude 61°," and that Drummond 

 found it common in the wooded country skirting the eastern base of 

 the Rocky Mountains and about the source of the Peace. 6 Ross gives 

 this species as " not rare in the mountain ranges " of the Mackenzie 

 River region/" About the last of June, 1894, Frank Russell killed 

 a grizzly bear in the delta of the Mackenzie. Russell does not de- 

 scribe its color, but states that it weighed about 700 pounds, and that 

 its specific gravity was so great " that it required considerable effort 

 to raise the carcass to the surface."'' The skull, now in the collection 

 of the University of Iowa, has been examined by Dr. C. Hart Mer- 

 riam and pronounced to be a true grizzly. 



In the summer of 1895 J. Alden Loring found grizzly bears to be 

 rather common in the mountains in the Jasper House region, where 



" Voyages to Frozen and Pacific Oceans, p. 160, 1801. 



6 Fauna Boreali-Americana, I. pp. 28, i M .>. 1829. (See Drummond's Itinerary, 

 p. GO.) 



"Can. Nat. and Geol., VII, p. 139, 1862. 

 d Expl. in Far North, p. 240, 1898. 



